Body Movements Help Problem-Solving

Body Movements Help Problem-Solving | Psych Central News

As most exercisers have experienced, performance of physical activity is often accompanied by clarity of thought. A new study supports this premise as investigators demonstrated that the brain can use bodily cues to help understand and solve complex problems.

The study, appearing in an upcoming issue of the journal Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, is the first to show that a person’s ability to solve a problem can be influenced by how he or she moves.

“Our manipulation is changing the way people think,” said University of Illinois psychology professor Alejandro Lleras, who conducted the study with Vanderbilt University postdoctoral researcher Laura Thomas.

“In other words, by directing the way people move their bodies, we are – unbeknownst to them – directing the way they think about the problem.”

Even after successfully solving the problem, almost none of the study subjects became consciously aware of any connection between the physical activity they engaged in and the solution they found.

“The results are interesting both because body motion can affect higher order thought, the complex thinking needed to solve complicated problems, and because this effect occurs even when someone else is directing the movements of the person trying to solve the problem,” Lleras said.

The new findings offer new insight into what researchers call “embodied cognition,” which describes the link between body and mind, Lleras said.

“People tend to think that their mind lives in their brain, dealing in conceptual abstractions, very much disconnected from the body,” he said.

“This emerging research is fascinating because it is demonstrating how your body is a part of your mind in a powerful way. The way you think is affected by your body and, in fact, we can use our bodies to help us think.”

In the study, the researchers asked study subjects to tie the ends of two strings together. The strings dangled from ceiling rafters and were so far apart that a person grasping one could not reach the other. A few tools were also available: a paperback book, a wrench, two small dumbbells and a plate.

Subjects were given a total of eight, two-minute sessions to solve the problem, with 100 seconds devoted to finding a solution, interrupted by 20 seconds of exercise.

“Our cover story was that we were interested in the effects of exercise on problem-solving,” Lleras said.

Some subjects were told to swing their arms forward and backward during the exercise sessions, while others were directed to alternately stretch one arm, and then the other, to the side.

To prevent them from consciously connecting these activities to the problem of the strings, the researchers had them count backwards by threes while exercising.

The subjects in the arm-swinging group were more likely than those in the stretch group to solve the problem, which required attaching an object to one of the strings and swinging it so that it could be grasped while also holding the other string.

By the end of the 16-minute deadline, participants in the arm-swinging group were 40 percent more likely than those in the stretch group to solve the problem.

“By making you swing your arms in a particular way, we’re activating a part of your brain that deals with swinging motions,” Lleras said. “That sort of activity in your brain then unconsciously leads you to think about that type of motion when you’re trying to solve the problem.”

Previous studies of embodied cognition have demonstrated that physical movements can aid in learning and memory or can change a person’s perceptions or attitudes toward information, Lleras said.

Other studies by Lleras and his colleagues also have shown that directing a person’s eye movements or attention in specific patterns can also aid in solving complex problems, but this is the first study to show that directed movements of the body can, outside of conscious awareness, guide higher-order cognitive processing, he said.

“We view this as a really important new window into understanding the complexity of human thought,” he said. “I guess another take-home message is this: If you are stuck trying to solve a problem, take a break. Go do something else. This will ensure that the next time you think about that problem you will literally approach it with a different mind. And that may help!”

Psyched Out By Stereotypes: Research Suggests Thinking About The Positive

Psyched Out By Stereotypes: Research Suggests Thinking About The Positive

ScienceDaily (May 5, 2009) — In a new study, cognitive scientists have shown that when aware of both a negative and positive stereotype related to performance, women will identify more closely with the positive stereotype, avoiding the harmful impact the negative stereotype unwittingly can have on their performance.

The study, led by Robert J. Rydell, assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University, focused on women and math ability. While studies -- including this one -- have shown that women will perform worse on mathematical tasks if simply made aware of the negative stereotype that women are weaker at math than men, this is the first study to examine the influence of concurrent and competing stereotypes, one negative and one positive.

The study also demonstrates how the negative stereotype encroached on working memory, thus leaving less brain power for the mathematical task at hand. The positive stereotypes had no such effect, however, and when coupled with the negative stereotype erased its drain on working memory.

"This research shows that because people are members of multiple social groups that often have contradictory performance stereotypes (for example, Asian females in the domain of math), making them aware of both a positive group stereotype and a negative stereotype eliminates the threat and underperformance that is usually seen when they dwell only on their membership in a negatively stereotyped group," Rydell said. "People seem motivated to align themselves with positively stereotyped groups and, as a byproduct, can eliminate the worry, stress and cognitive depletion brought about by negative performance stereotypes, increasing actual performance."

Stereotype threat -- where just the awareness of a stereotype can influence performance regardless of actual ability -- has been demonstrated in many domains, from driving cars to cooking. In academics, high-stakes tests, such as college entrance exams, often ask test-takers to select demographic information, such as gender and level of education, before beginning the test.

One of the experiments in Rydell's study followed this format, with some test-takers asked to identify only their gender -- all were women -- before working on the math problems. These study participants did not perform as well as the students who were asked to provide additional demographic information, such as their education level, which was considered a positive stereotype.

"A stereotype that might be positive for one person could be considered negative to another," Rydell said. "The easiest fix would be to ask for demographic information after the test."

The study involved four experiments in which female undergraduate college students were asked to perform difficult math problems. Some were given no information about the stereotypes before working on the problems. Some students were made aware only of the negative stereotype, that men were better at math than women. Some students were only made aware of the positive stereotype, that college students performed better at math than non-college students. Some of the students were made aware of both stereotypes.

Each experiment involved between 57 and 112 college students, using new students with each experiment. Here are some of the findings:

* In all four experiments, the women who learned only of the negative stereotype performed worse than the women in the other three groups, who on average showed no difference in performance level.
* One experiment used a word association exercise to gauge which social group the study participants identified with more strongly -- being female or a college student. When presented with both stereotypes, the women identified more with their college student identity and less with their gender identity.
* One of the experiments measured the students' working memory once they learned of one or both stereotypes. The women who learned only of the negative stereotype demonstrated less available working memory.

Rydell said people become aware of stereotypes in different ways. For women, simply sitting between two men while taking a math test can activate the negative gender stereotype.

"The activation of the stereotype is relatively automatic and hard to control," he said. "Whether you choose to endorse or believe the stereotype, however, is under your control. One option is to think about the positive groups you're associated with that are related to the task at hand."

Co-authors include Allen R. McConnell, Miami University; and Sian L. Beilock, University of Chicago.