How does the physicality of an object impact creativity? Our work investigates how objects that possess affordances varying in perceptual and manipulative specificity affect the imagination of the elementary school child. The use of three different kinds of objects was compared: cultural, physical and across three objects (frying pan, pickaxe, lantern) by children enacting parts of a story. We measure the child's 'broader imagination'. Results showed that the physical object type provides better support to extend the imagination of the 9-year old child. There were however gender differences that suggest differing affinity to specific objects. We discuss how our results inform the design of tangibles for enactment-based story authoring systems. Copyright 2013 ACM.
name of conference
Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children
