Does Origami Make You Smarter? What the Research Shows for IQ

Origami has not been shown to make anyone smarter: no study I could find has measured IQ before and after a course of paper folding. Training of spatial skills in general does raise scores on spatial tests, by about half a standard deviation on average (Hedges' g = 0.47 across 217 studies), but the origami studies themselves are small classroom trials with mixed results, and none measured general intelligence.

What origami clearly builds is skill at origami, and probably some of the ability to picture how a flat shape turns into a solid one. This page covers what the folding studies found, how large spatial-training effects are, why gains on a spatial test are a long way from a higher IQ, and why the people who enjoy origami may have strong spatial skills before they fold their first crane.

Origami looks like a workout for the mind's eye. Each step asks you to match a diagram to the paper in your hands and to imagine where the next fold will land, often across dozens of moves. Those demands overlap with "spatial visualization", the ability to picture objects and mentally rotate or fold them, which is one of the abilities tested on many IQ batteries. Our guide to visual-spatial reasoning and why it shows up on an IQ test explains how those items work.

One classic spatial measure even looks like origami. In the "Paper Folding Test", from a kit of cognitive tests published by Educational Testing Service in 1976, each item shows a sheet of paper folded once to three times with a hole punched through it, and the test taker picks the pattern of holes that will appear when the sheet is opened. It is natural to assume that folding real paper would make those items easier.

Spatial skills also matter for careers. In large American samples followed over decades, spatial ability in adolescence predicted later entry into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, adding to what verbal and mathematical scores predicted. That finding is a large part of why educators have looked for classroom activities, origami among them, that might train it.

Most origami research comes from mathematics classrooms, and most of it uses a "quasi-experimental" design, in which whole classes are compared without random assignment of pupils.

• Seventh graders in the United States: Boakes taught origami within mathematics lessons to 56 students and compared them with classes taught the usual way on three spatial tests, including the Paper Folding Test. After adjusting for starting differences, only one of the three tests showed an effect, and it differed by gender. Geometry knowledge did not differ between the groups.

• Elementary pupils in Turkey: Cakmak, Isiksal and Koc reported that origami-based instruction improved scores on a spatial ability test in a purposive sample from one private school. Pupils liked the lessons but found the folding itself difficult.

• Tenth graders in Turkey: Arıcı and Aslan-Tutak compared 90 students who received four weeks of origami-based geometry lessons with 94 who received regular instruction. The origami group did better on a spatial visualization battery that included the Paper Folding Test and on geometry tests written by the researcher.

• Trainee teachers in Ghana: Akayuure and colleagues compared 52 pre-service teachers taught with origami with 42 controls. The origami group scored higher than controls on a mental rotation measure of spatial orientation, but there was no significant difference on the Paper Folding Test, the measure that most resembles origami.

• The Think3d! programme: Taylor and Hutton built a programme of origami and pop-up paper engineering for fourth graders and reported spatial gains compared with children tested before they took part. A follow-up with 92 pupils in Grades 3 to 6 found improvements on the Paper Folding Test and a rotation test (accuracy on the rotation test rose from 29% to 35%), but a third spatial test did not improve, and the study had no control group.

Taken together, origami lessons often produce some improvement on some spatial tests. None of these studies randomised individual pupils, the samples are small, and the gains are on spatial tasks, not on IQ.

For older adults the evidence is thinner still. The only clinical study I found was a single-patient case report: an older adult with Lewy body dementia who completed eight hour-long origami sessions and improved on several tests, including a short intelligence test. A single case with no comparison group cannot separate the effect of origami from practice on the tests or ordinary day-to-day fluctuation. Anyone noticing changes in memory or thinking should see a doctor or a neuropsychologist.

The best evidence on whether spatial skills can be trained comes from meta-analyses of all kinds of spatial training, of which origami is one small part.

Uttal and colleagues pooled 217 studies and found an average training effect of g = 0.47 compared with control groups. The gains lasted when testing was delayed, and they transferred to other spatial tasks that had not been trained. If a spatial test were scored like an IQ test, half a standard deviation would be about 7 points (0.47 × 15), but these are narrow spatial measures, and a 7-point gain on one of them is not a 7-point gain in IQ.

Hawes, Gilligan-Lee and Mix looked at a further step: whether spatial training improves mathematics. Across 29 studies with 3,765 participants, training improved spatial thinking (g = 0.49) and mathematics (g = 0.28). Training with concrete materials, a category that would include paper folding, worked better than computerised training, and the effects were larger on mathematics problems that closely resembled the training.

Those are real effects, and they fit the general pattern for spatial practice. Our guide on how to improve spatial reasoning skills covers practical options in more detail.

Psychologists separate "near transfer" (getting better at the trained skill and tasks very like it) from "far transfer" (gains in broad abilities such as general intelligence). Origami fits the near-transfer pattern. Folding paper improves folding and sometimes improves tests of imagined folding and rotation. The geometry results are mixed, and no study has looked for a change in IQ.

That matters because far transfer is the claim with the weakest record across all forms of practice. Sala and Gobet's work on chess, music and working-memory training, and a later second-order meta-analysis by Sala and colleagues that pooled earlier meta-analyses of several training programmes, found that once placebo effects and publication bias were controlled, the average effect of cognitive training on far-transfer measures was zero. Spatial training has a better record than most programmes, and the likely reason is that the trained skill and the tested skill sit close together. That closeness is also why its gains stay inside the spatial domain.

An experiment by Zhao and colleagues shows why origami is spatial work. When 53 adults learned to fold five models while doing a second task at the same time, a visuospatial memory task and a rhythmic tapping task interfered with learning to fold. Origami draws on the same short-term visual memory that spatial tests measure, which helps explain why practice helps on those tests and not on vocabulary or arithmetic.

Selection is the other half of the story. In a study of 43 Japanese university students, Hanada found that people who scored higher on the Block Design subtest of the WAIS-IV, a standard spatial task, and people who were more introverted folded more models correctly. People with strong spatial ability are likely to find origami rewarding and to stick with it, so a skilled folder's spatial talent may be a cause of the hobby as much as a result of it. Classroom comparisons also inherit differences between schools and families that can affect test scores on their own.

No study has shown that origami raises IQ. Origami lessons have produced modest gains on some spatial tests in small classroom studies, which is a narrower outcome than intelligence.

Sometimes, on some tests. Classroom studies report gains on paper folding or rotation tasks, but at least one found no change on the Paper Folding Test, and spatial training of all kinds averages about half a standard deviation on spatial measures.

It can help with geometry and spatially demanding problems, but the evidence is mixed: one study found no difference in geometry knowledge, and another found gains. Spatial training in general has a small positive effect on maths (g = 0.28).

There is no trial evidence that it does. The only clinical report I found describes a single patient, which cannot show that origami caused any change.

I found no study that compares origami with Tetris directly. Both are forms of spatial practice, and the general finding is that practice helps most on tasks that resemble what was practised.

Origami is a satisfying hobby that trains the hands and the mind's eye, and it may give a modest lift to scores on spatial tests that resemble folding. There is no evidence that it makes you smarter in the sense of raising IQ, and people with strong spatial ability may be drawn to it in the first place. If you want an accurate picture of your spatial and reasoning abilities, try a professionally developed IQ test.

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2. Wai, J., Lubinski, D., & Benbow, C. P. (2009). Spatial ability for STEM domains: Aligning over 50 years of cumulative psychological knowledge solidifies its importance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 101(4), 817-835. [doi.org/10.1037/a0016127](. doi.org

3. Boakes, N. J. (2009). Origami instruction in the middle school mathematics classroom: Its impact on spatial visualization and geometry knowledge of students. RMLE Online, 32(7), 1-12. [doi.org/10.1080/19404476.2009.11462060](. doi.org

4. Cakmak, S., Isiksal, M., & Koc, Y. (2014). Investigating effect of origami-based instruction on elementary students' spatial skills and perceptions. The Journal of Educational Research, 107(1), 59-68. [doi.org/10.1080/00220671.2012.753861](. doi.org

5. Arıcı, S., & Aslan-Tutak, F. (2015). The effect of origami-based instruction on spatial visualization, geometry achievement, and geometric reasoning. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 13(1), 179-200. [doi.org/10.1007/s10763-013-9487-8](. doi.org

6. Akayuure, P., Asiedu-Addo, S. K., & Alebna, V. (2016). Investigating the effect of origami instruction on preservice teachers' spatial ability and geometric knowledge for teaching. International Journal of Education in Mathematics, Science and Technology, 4(3), 198-209. [eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1102197](. eric.ed.gov

7. Taylor, H. A., & Hutton, A. (2013). Think3d!: Training spatial thinking fundamental to STEM education. Cognition and Instruction, 31(4), 434-455. [doi.org/10.1080/07370008.2013.828727](. doi.org

8. Burte, H., Gardony, A. L., Hutton, A., & Taylor, H. A. (2017). Think3d!: Improving mathematics learning through embodied spatial training. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 2, 13. [doi.org/10.1186/s41235-017-0052-9](. doi.org

9. Mendonça, A. R., de Carvalho, J. S. A., Nórte, C. E., & Landeira-Fernandez, J. (2025). Cognitive intervention in a patient with Lewy bodies through origami: A case report. Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 40(7), 1435-1443. [doi.org/10.1093/arclin/acaf038](. doi.org

10. Hawes, Z. C. K., Gilligan-Lee, K. A., & Mix, K. S. (2022). Effects of spatial training on mathematics performance: A meta-analysis. Developmental Psychology, 58(1), 112-137. [doi.org/10.1037/dev0001281](. doi.org

11. Sala, G., & Gobet, F. (2017). Does far transfer exist? Negative evidence from chess, music, and working memory training. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26(6), 515-520. [doi.org/10.1177/0963721417712760](. doi.org

12. Sala, G., Aksayli, N. D., Tatlidil, K. S., Tatsumi, T., Gondo, Y., & Gobet, F. (2019). Near and far transfer in cognitive training: A second-order meta-analysis. Collabra: Psychology, 5(1), 18. [doi.org/10.1525/collabra.203](. doi.org

13. Zhao, F., Gaschler, R., Kneschke, A., Radler, S., Gausmann, M., Duttine, C., & Haider, H. (2020). Origami folding: Taxing resources necessary for the acquisition of sequential skills. PLOS ONE, 15(10), e0240226. [doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240226](. doi.org

14. Hanada, M. (2022). Introversion and high spatial ability is associated with origami proficiency. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 825462. [doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.825462](. doi.org

Hero image: Cranes made by Origami paper, by Laitche, public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.