Bodily movements representing abstract concepts (e.g., fluidity) can affect divergent creative thinking. A recent study showed that participants who performed fluid arm movements by tracing curved line-drawings (the fluid condition) subsequently generated a larger number of more original alternative uses for newspapers than did those who traced angular line-drawings (the non-fluid condition). This suggests that fluid movements enhance fluency and originality in divergent creative thinking. To replicate these findings, we employed the same task with a larger Japanese sample. Participants in the fluid condition generated more uses for newspapers than in the non-fluid condition, regardless of confounding variables: mood, subjective difficulty of the tracing, and daily use of newspapers. In contrast to previous findings, there were no effects on originality. Our results suggest that fluidity enacted by arm movements robustly enhances creative fluency, although other factors (e.g., culture) could interfere with its effect on originality.

Schizotypy is a personality trait in healthy people that is related to schizophrenic symptoms. People with high schizotypy tend to have hallucinatory experiences. The relationship between high schizotypy and hallucinatory experiences could be explained by mindfulness traits and stress. To test our hypothesized model, we conducted a preregistered online survey in a Japanese non-clinical sample. In the preregistered analysis, structural equation modeling revealed that our model insufficiently fit our data and stress did not mediate between schizotypy and hallucinatory experiences. However, consistent with our hypothesis, mindfulness traits mediated between them. Exploratory analysis revealed that the model including three facets of mindfulness traits (i.e., observing, acting with awareness, and non-judging) as mediators fit our data best. These findings suggest that attention to current experiences could be a key factor in understanding the cognitive mechanisms underlying hallucinatory experiences in schizotypy and hallucinations in schizophrenia.

We visually perceive meaning from stimuli in the external world. There are inter-individual variations in the perception of meaning. A candidate factor to explain this variation is positive schizotypy, which is a personality analogous to positive symptoms of schizophrenia (e.g., visual hallucination). The present study investigated the relationship between positive schizotypy, and the perception of meaning derived from meaningful and meaningless visual stimuli. Positive schizotypy in Japanese female undergraduates (n = 35) was assessed by the Cognitive-Perceptual dimension of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire. The participants were asked to report what they saw in noise-degraded images of meaningful objects (Experiment 1) and to respond whether the objects were meaningful (Experiment 2A) and which paired objects were meaningful (Experiment 2B). Positive schizotypy (i.e., Cognitive-Perceptual score) did not correlate with time to detect meaningful objects, and with false-alarm rates, sensitivity, and response criterion in the perception of meaning from meaningful and meaningless stimuli. These results were against our hypothesis and contradicted previous findings. The inconsistencies are discussed in terms of different methods (e.g., stimulus category) and conditions (e.g., paranormal beliefs).

Errors in discriminating right from left are referred to as right-left confusion. Mechanisms of right-left confusion could reflect a failure in visually perceiving spatial information and translating it into verbal representation of right or left (i.e., visuo-verbal process). There may also be verbo-visual process, where verbal cues are first perceived and translated into visual representations of space. To quantify these two processes underlying right-left confusion, Study 1 investigated the factor structure of the Right-Left Confusability Scale, which assesses daily experiences of right-left confusion. Exploratory factor analysis suggested that the two processes and another factor reflecting mental rotation underlie right- left confusion. Study 2 examined the correlations between the (sub)scale scores and performance on orientation judgement tasks reflecting visuo-verbal and verbo-visual processes. Overall, self-reported measures were not associated with behavioral measures presumably reflecting visuo-verbal and verbo- visual processes. These results suggest that cognitive mechanisms underlying right-left confusion can be classified into visuo-verbal and verbo-visual processes and mental rotation, although there is room to revise psychometric and experimental assessments of right-left confusion.