Directing a person’s eye movements or attention in specific patterns can also aid in solving complex problems.

A new 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 [of the body] is changing the way people think,” said University of Illinois psychology professor Alejandro Lleras, who along with Vanderbilt University postdoctoral researcher Laura Thomas, conducted the study. “In other words, by directing the way people move their bodies, we are – unbeknownst to them - directing the way they think about the problem.”

“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.

According to Lleras, this type of consciousness, “embodied cognition,” describes the link between body and mind in a new and insightful way.

“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 one experiment dealing with a problem in knot tying, subjects were more successful if they swung their arms than if they stretched their arms. “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 [knot tying] problem.”

According to Llares, previous studies have demonstrated that body movement can assist in learning and memory or can change a person’s perceptions or attitudes toward information.

Other studies by Lleras and his colleagues have shown that directing a person’s eye movements or attention in specific patterns can also aid in solving complex problems. 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,” Lleras 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!”

Thomas and Lleras’ article in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review is titled “Swinging Into Thought: Directed Movement Guides Insight in Problem Solving.“