Fact · Dictation for work and study
81%percent of participants
In a 2014 experiment, walking raised the creativity scores of 81 percent of participants on the alternate uses test of divergent thinking.
Checked against its source on October 16, 2026
In the source's own words
“Walking increased 81% of participants' creativity on the GAU”
Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking, Marily Oppezzo and Daniel L. Schwartz, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2014, Abstract, Experiment 1.
Open the original (DOI 10.1037/a0036577)- What it measures
- Adults completed Guilford's alternate uses test while seated and again while walking on a treadmill. The test asks for many different uses of a common object, which measures divergent thinking. It is not a writing task.
- What it does not show
- Short idea-generation tasks, mostly with university students. The study does not measure drafting, dictation or the quality of prose.