NEW PAPER ON CREATIVITY – Richard Wiseman

I’ve simply co-authored a brand new analysis paper suggesting that studying to carry out magic methods makes youngsters extra artistic.

Throughout the experiment, a bunch 10 to 11-year-old youngsters accomplished a creativity check that concerned arising with a number of makes use of for an on a regular basis object. They had been then taught how one can carry out a easy trick through which they confirmed somebody a dice with completely different colored sides, requested the individual to secretly select a color, after which magically revealed their individual’s alternative. Lastly, all of them accomplished the creativity check a second time. In comparison with one other group of kids who took half in an artwork lesson, studying the trick considerably boosted the kids’s creativity scores.

Magic methods usually contain lateral pondering and we suspect that studying to carry out the illusions inspired youngsters to suppose outdoors of the field.  There’s a  want to reinforce artistic pondering from a younger age. Studying magic methods can be a value efficient, sensible, and enjoyable manner of lecturers and oldsters boosting youngsters’s creativity. Perhaps sooner or later, magic will grow to be a part of the varsity curriculum!

The peer-reviewed work was carried out in collaboration with  Amy Wiles and Professor Caroline Watt (Edinburgh College), and printed within the educational journal PeerJ.

You possibly can learn the paper totally free right here, and a basic overview on magic and training right here.