Encouraging children to use gestures as they think can help them come up with more creative ideas, according to new research.
“Our findings show that children naturally gesture when they think of unusual ways to use everyday items, ”says psychological scientist Elizabeth Kirk. “When we then asked children to move their hands, they were able to come up with even more creative ideas. ”
“Gesturing may allow us to explore the properties(特性)of the items — for example, how the item could be held, its size, its shape, etc. — and doing so can help us come up with ideas for creative uses, ” Kirk explains.
In their first study, the researchers compared the creativity of children who spontaneously (自发地)gestured with those who either did not or could not gesture.
A total of 78 children, aged 9-11, saw a series of images of ordinary items, such as a newspaper, a tin can, and a kettle. The researchers asked the children to look at each image and list as many uses as they could think of. A group of participants completed the task twice — on one version of the task, they wore mittens(连指手套)that limited their ability to gesture.
Restricting children’s ability to gesture did not affect their ability to come up with creative uses for the objects; Children who were free to gesture produced about the same number of ideas as those who wore the mittens and could not gesture.
In a second experiment, 54 children completed the same alternative-uses task. In some cases, children gestured normally; in other cases, the researchers encouraged the children to“use your hands to show me how you could use the object in different ways”.
The encouragement worked: Children who were specifically encouraged to gesture produced a greater number of creative uses for the objects than did the children who were not given any special instruction.
“Our findings add to the growing body of evidence showing the significant role of gesture in thinking and have applications to the classroom,” Kirk concluded in their paper.
12. What did the researchers intend to find out in the first experiment?
A.The number of creative ideas the children could think of. |
B.How the children would explore the properties of the items. |
C.Whether encouraging gesture would help to produce more new ideas. |
D.The difference between thinking with gestures and without gestures. |
13. Why were mittens used in the experiment?
A.To restrict gestures. |
B.To limit creative thinking. |
C.To test the ability to gesture, |
D.To increase creative ideas. |
14. When did the children think of the most new ideas?
A.When wearing mittens. |
B.When encouraged to gesture. |
C.When naturally gesturing. |
D.When not using their hands. |
15. What would be the best title for the text?
A.Communicate with Gestures |
B.Think with Your Hands |
C.Use Everyday Items Creatively |
D.Make Gestures when Necessary |