The author considers combinatory play as an intersection between creativity, play, and neuroaesthetics. She discusses combinatory play as vital to the creative process in art and science, particularly with regard to the incubation of new ideas. She reviews findings from current neurobiological research and outlines the way that the brain activates…

This article explores the role of play in human interaction with computers in the context of computer programming. The author considers many facets of programming including the literary practice of coding, the abstract design of programs, and more mundane activities such as testing, debugging, and hacking. She discusses how these incorporate the…

This article asks why adults play dress-up and investigates the role of object play in the making of magical thinking and the reforming of adult identity. The author looks at a wide spectrum of narratives and their genres--the fairy tale "Cinderella," the film comedy "Some Like it Hot", the epistolary novel "Pamela", the film melodrama "Now,…

Though generally accepted as the most playfully entertaining form of popular media or art, animation as play has received little scholarly analysis. The author examines the nature of playfulness in animation and describes play as a critical tool in animation studies. Examining studio character animation from such perspectives as creative…

Howard Gardner first posited a list of "multiple intelligences" as a liberating alternative to the assumptions underlying traditional IQ testing in his widely read study "Frames of Mind" (1983). Play has appeared only in passing in Gardner's thinking about intelligence, however, even though play instructs and trains the verbal, interpersonal,…