How to play
Choose an object, show it to everyone and then start the timer for one minute. Each player has to come up with six different uses for the same object. For example, for 鈥渘ewspaper鈥�, answers could include: to start a fire, to wrap rubbish, to swat flies, to pack boxes or to write a kidnap note.
How to score
One point for each idea, one point if it could work in real life, and a bonus point for originality if no one else came up with the same idea.
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Who should win?
Creativity requires an ability to think outside of the box, followed by a stint of in-the-box thinking to assess whether the ideas are of any practical use. In neuroscience terms, 鈥渢he box鈥� is the prefrontal cortex, which reality-checks our thoughts and ideas. This part of the brain doesn鈥檛 fully develop until adulthood, leaving kids free to come up with zany ideas without the tyranny of sensible thinking. That should make them good at this game. The catch, though, is that their ideas might be too crazy to actually work, says Evangelia Chrysikou, a neuroscientist who studies creativity at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. That will lose them points. 鈥淢y prediction from a brain development perspective would be that kids would be better at the novelty piece of creativity, but not the appropriateness, and that adults would likely show the reverse pattern.鈥�
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淭he great family brain-off鈥�
