Does Dancing Boost Creativity?
Dance movements can spark creativity in “Alternate Uses Task” exercises. (Image: MPI for Empirical Aesthetics / L. Bittner)
Blank Page Syndrome? Theories in creativity research suggest that a break can be beneficial for creative problem solving. But what should you do during this break, also known as ‘incubation time,’ to make it as effective as possible? A research team led by the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, has found that dancing leads to more creative results, especially when the dance moves resemble the movements needed to solve the problem.
The team examined the effect of four incubation tasks on four tasks requiring creative responses. The 83 participants in the study were presented with the tasks in random order, with the incubation period taking place immediately after the question in the creative task. The creativity tasks revolved around alternative uses of objects, such as “Please list as many unusual uses for a cup that you can think of. You have two minutes.” This type of task is called an ‘Alternate Uses Task’ (AUT). In addition to the cup, the researchers chose a brick, a sheet of paper and a paperclip as other objects.
The incubation time lasted five minutes each. The researchers selected two classic incubation tasks—a rest period and a digit detection task—and compared them with two dance-based tasks: imitating arm movements from ballet and imitating movements from Iranian dance. The team found that the participants were more creative after the dance tasks than after the rest period and the digit detection tasks, with the most creative responses coming after the Iranian dance. This was particularly evident in the paperclip object, for which participants produced the most creative solutions overall.
“In Iranian dance you have these very curling, delicate finger movements, which you don’t find in ballet. We assume, based on our interpretation of these findings, that these movements might be activating the parts of the brain’s motor system controlling the fingers—and this activation might somehow probe participants’ ability to come up with usages for objects that are delicately manipulated with the fingers, like a paperclip, but not for objects that require more arm strength, like a brick,” explains first author Julia F. Christensen of the MPIEA.
These findings highlight the importance of movement in our cognitive processes and the need for future studies to learn more about the neural mechanisms that enhance creativity. The results also open up new avenues for further research into the positive influence of (dance) movement on cognitive processes. The paper was published in the Journal of Cognitive Enhancement.
A video of the pilot experiment of this study can be found here.
The experiment took place in 2019 as part of the Tate Exchange event Moving Bodies at the Tate Modern in London.
Videos of the two dance incubation tasks, performed by co-author Sharzad Khorsandi, can be found here:
Publication:
Christensen, J. F., Muralikrishnan, R., Münzberg, M., Castaño Manias, B., & Vessel, E. A. (2024). Can 5 Minutes of Finger Actions Boost Creative Incubation? Journal of Cognitive Enhancement. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41465-024-00306-0
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