Does age affect creativity?
Human Health and Behavior
Sara Marose
- Grade:
- 5
- Teacher:
- Jill Luby
Using ink blot images, I studied effects of age on creative inhibition by measuring the length of time it took teachers and students of various ages to give creative interpretation of the ink blots. I chose this project because I am an artistic and creative person who is interested in learning about creativity and the brain. The results are that younger children tend to give creative answers more quickly than older individuals. This project is important because it gives insight into the effects of age on brain development and the inhibition of creativity. Key words: creativity, ink blots
This is a very thoughtful and well-designed experiment! I especially liked how you connected brain development and the prefrontal cortex (page 2) to creativity that shows strong background research. Your research question and hypothesis (page 3) were clear and testable. Testing multiple age groups, including first graders, fourth graders, eighth graders, and teachers (pages 4-5), shows strong comparative design. Your results table and bar graph (page 6) clearly show the differences in response times between age groups, and I appreciate how you also analyzed differences between boys and girls (page 7). Your conclusion (page 9) thoughtfully reflects on your hypothesis and even suggests future research ideas, which is exactly what strong scientists do.
You chose an interesting way to measure creativity using inkblots and response time. Keep asking big questions about how the brain works and designing experiments to test them you are developing excellent research skills!
This is a very clever project! I was impressed by how you used inkblots as a tool to explore a complex concept like ‘creative inhibition.’ Your background research connecting the development of the prefrontal cortex to impulse control provided a strong scientific foundation for your hypothesis. It was excellent to see you test a wide age range, including teachers, which added a really interesting layer to your results. Your observation that teachers were actually faster than 8th graders is a great example of a finding that challenges the expected trend—this is exactly how scientists learn new things! Keep practicing this kind of critical inquiry; you have a great scientific mind.