Reference : Alternative Object Use in Adults and Children: Embodied Cognitive Bases of Creativity
Scientific journals : Article
Social & behavioral sciences, psychology : Multidisciplinary, general & others
Educational Sciences
http://hdl.handle.net/10993/52194
Alternative Object Use in Adults and Children: Embodied Cognitive Bases of Creativity
English
Gubenko, Alla[University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Education and Social Work (DESW) >]
Houssemand, Claude[University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Education and Social Work (DESW) >]
Rising Ideas In: Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology
Yes
International
[en] embodied creativity ; affordances ; creative process ; tool use ; pretend play
[en] Why does one need creativity? On a personal level, improvisation with available resources is needed for online coping with unforeseen environmental stimuli when existing knowledge and apparent action strategies do not work. On a cultural level, the exploitation of existing cultural means and norms for the deliberate production of novel and valuable artifacts is a basis for cultural and technological development and extension of human action possibilities across various domains. It is less clear, however, how creativity develops and how exactly one arrives at generating new action possibilities and producing multiple alternative action strategies using familiar objects. In this theoretical paper, we first consider existing accounts of the creative process in the Alternative Uses Task and then present an alternative interpretation, drawing on sociocultural views and an embodied cognition approach. We explore similarities between the psychological processes underlying the generation of new uses in the Alternative Uses Task and children’s pretend play. We discuss possible cognitive mechanisms and speculate how the generation of new action possibilities for common objects in pretend play can be related to adults’ ability to generate new action strategies associated with object use. Implications for creativity development in humans and embodied artificial agents are discussed.
Researchers ; Professionals ; Students ; General public
[University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Education and Social Work (DESW) >]
