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I don’t deny the link. I worked with a programmer/mathematician who would just start ambling about the office without any mission when deep in thought. I think

I don’t deny the link. I worked with a programmer/mathematician who would just start ambling about the office without any mission when deep in thought. I think that in his case the thinking actually drives the walking instead of vice versa. >Oppezzo designed an elegant experiment. A group of Stanford students were asked to list as many creative uses for common objects as they could. A Frisbee, for example, can be used as a dog toy, but it can also be used as a hat, a plate, a bird bath, or a small shovel. The more novel uses a student listed, the higher the creativity score. Half the students sat for an hour before they were given their test. The others walked on a treadmill. >The results were staggering. Creativity scores improved by 60 percent after a walk. With everything in the news about reproducibility and doctored data, this seems too staggering to believe. Has this study been tried again?

zz865 5y ago
I'm more interested that the walk was before the test. I thought the point was to think while you're walking.
- irrational 5y ago
  Maybe they told them the question beforehand and then the test was writing down their answers.
OskarS 5y ago
> With everything in the news about reproducibility and doctored data, this seems too staggering to believe. Has this study been tried again? Yep, totally! I'm a firm believer in the power of walking to increase thoughts, but whenever I read about studies like this a big red beeping alarm goes of in my brain that goes "replication crisis! replication crisis!"
thevagrant 5y ago
There are other cases / studies that point to similar cognitive improvements through exercise. There was a case study I read in the book linked below and it indicated that test scores improved dramatically when they had kids exercise before learning. It states that the improvements occurred regardless of physical ability as long as participants aimed to achieve their personal best during exercise. I can't speak to the quality of the research but it is interesting and does not surprise me. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Spark-Revolutionary-Science-Exercise-Brain/dp/0316113514 https://www.amazon.com/Spark-Revolutionary-Science-Exercise-...

zz865 5y ago

I'm more interested that the walk was before the test. I thought the point was to think while you're walking.

irrational 5y ago
Maybe they told them the question beforehand and then the test was writing down their answers.

OskarS 5y ago

> With everything in the news about reproducibility and doctored data, this seems too staggering to believe. Has this study been tried again? Yep, totally! I'm a firm believer in the power of walking to increase thoughts, but whenever I read about studies like this a big red beeping alarm goes of in my brain that goes "replication crisis! replication crisis!"

thevagrant 5y ago

There are other cases / studies that point to similar cognitive improvements through exercise. There was a case study I read in the book linked below and it indicated that test scores improved dramatically when they had kids exercise before learning. It states that the improvements occurred regardless of physical ability as long as participants aimed to achieve their personal best during exercise. I can't speak to the quality of the research but it is interesting and does not surprise me. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Spark-Revolutionary-Science-Exercise-Brain/dp/0316113514 https://www.amazon.com/Spark-Revolutionary-Science-Exercise-...