Children who are given explicit instructions may be less likely
to explore on their own. So says a study by Laura Schulz of
Harvard, Elizabeth Bonawitz of Berkeley, Patrick Shafto of the
University of Louisville and their colleagues. In order to
determine what effect giving specific directions would have on
children’s creativity, the researchers built a colorful, gadgety
toy with four hidden functions. Pulling or pressing parts of it
could make it squeak, light up or play musical notes, and
looking down one of the tubes would reveal a reverse mirrored
image. 85 preschoolers were recruited to play with the new toy
under four different conditions. One group (pedagogical) was
explicitly shown one function (how to make the toy squeak). The
second group (interrupted) was also shown how to operate the
squeak function, but the experimenter immediately excused
herself (claiming to have forgotten something important) and
left the area. For the third group (naive), the experimenter
pretended to have just figured out th