Multisensory objects’ role on creativity
Auteurs : Amandine Cimier (LAPEA), Beatrice Biancardi (LINEACT), Jérôme Guegan (LAPEA), Frédéric Segonds (LCPI), Fabrice Mantelet (LCPI), Camille Jean (LCPI), Claude Gazo (LCPI), Stéphanie Buisine (LINEACT)
Article : Articles dans des revues internationales ou nationales avec comité de lecture - 01/01/2025 - Journal of Creativity
In this research, we investigated the role of multisensorial manipulation on creativity, and the influence of
inspirational objects on creative outcomes. Object manipulation may support embodied cognition during a
generative creative phase (emergence of motor, spatial, emotional ideas, etc.) then exploratory phase (creative
fixation, development of a functional creation, etc.). Our protocol involved 136 engineering students divided into
34 groups which were provided with inspirational cubes illustrating manufacturing inventive principles or basic
volumes from the Creative Mental Synthesis Task. They could manipulate these objects either in a visuo-haptic
condition, or in a visuo-imaginative condition. Our results highlighted a main effect of manipulation, showing
that visual-haptic condition led to higher creativity than visual-imaginative condition. We also observed several
effects in favor of inspirational cubes with regard to basic volumes: significantly higher creativity, more subjective
and inter-subjective facilitation behaviors, more cognitive and emotional operations. Participants also
showed at an individual level a better mobilization of the multisensorial senses. Creative thinking may be
stimulated when an active manipulation phase is set up before the creative production. This could contribute to
improving practice for engineers, particularly for using additive manufacturing and/or during their training at
school.