Approaches to foster motor creativity differ according to whether creative movements are assumed to be enacted creative ideas, or solutions to emerging motor problems that arise from task and environmental constraints. The twofold aim of the current study was to investigate whether an enriched physical education intervention delivered with a joint constraints-led and cognitive stimulation approach fosters motor creativity, and the responsiveness to the intervention is moderated by baseline motor and cognitive skills and sex; the intervention may benefit motor creativity (...) through gains in motor coordination, executive function, and creative thinking. Ninety-five children, aged 6–9 years, participated in a 6-month group randomized trial with specialist-led enriched PE vs. generalist-led conventional PE. Before and after the intervention, Bertsch’s Test of Motor Creativity, Movement Assessment Battery for Children, Random Number Generation task and Torrance Test of Creative Thinking were administered. Linear mixed models were run accounting for the random effects of data clusters. Multiple mediation analysis was performed to assess whether motor coordination, executive function and creative thinking mediated any improvement of motor creativity. Results showed that specialist-led enriched PE, compared to generalist-led conventional practice, elicited a more pronounced improvement in all motor creativity dimensions independently of baseline levels of motor and cognitive skills and sex; and improved motor creativity was partially mediated by improved motor coordination and, as regards motor flexibility, also by improved inhibitory ability. In conclusion, enriching PE with tailored manipulations of constraints and variability may enhance the ability to create multiple and original task-pertinent movements both directly and through indirect paths. The results are discussed extending to motor creativity a theoretical framework that distinguishes different creativity modes. The intervention may have fostered the generation of creative movements directly through the exposure to variation in constraints, activating the sensorimotor ‘flow’ mode of creativity that bypasses higher-order cognition, but also indirectly through a systematic and conscious convergence on solutions, activating the ‘deliberate’ mode of creativity that relies on inhibition to reject common or task-inappropriate movement categories. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the abrupt closure of circus schools, venues, and companies, introducing a myriad of novel stressors. Performers and students must now attempt to maintain their technical, physical, artistic, creative, and cognitive abilities without in-person support from their coaches and must manage the isolation from their training and performing spaces. For circus artists, the transposition of the work space to a home environment is not possible, which creates novel stressors that could lead to the exacerbation and escalation (...) of mental health issues. The purpose of this study is to develop, implement and evaluate a holistic interventional program based on the socio-ecological model of resilience and operationalized through physical literacy. This will be a prospective longitudinal study with a retrospective comparison to data from a similar student cohort pre-pandemic. Interventions were designed using a population-specific, participant-based developmental model within a knowledge translation framework. The interventional program includes group webinars, small group information sessions, and one-on-one Zoom meetings, in addition to the distribution of electronic educational materials. The interventions will holistically provide psychological, physical, social, technical, artistic, and creative supports. Resources will be deployed throughout the closure period and through recovery, as transitions to return to training after prolonged hiatus will magnify known psychological and physical difficulties. Repeated, longitudinal assessment of students will be utilized to track changes over time at key transitions in the pandemic and school year and will be compared to a pre-pandemic school year. The framework for this program will be translatable to other performing arts and high-performance contexts. The program has implications for the mental health and overall wellbeing of artists and for cultural and economic recovery of the industry. (shrink)

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. (shrink)