Sara S
12-23-2013, 06:58 AM
from delancyplace.com:
Many highly creative people behave in ways that are viewed as
eccentric. Why? Researchers are finding that their creativity and their eccentricity
are rooted in the same cause -- a diminished ability to filter out nearly as much
of the constant stream of information as the average person, and thus the need to
process and organize this information in untypical ways. The term for this trait
is "cognitive disinhibition":
"Many highly creative people [display] personal behavior [that] sometimes strikes
others as odd. Albert Einstein picked up cigarette butts off the street to get tobacco
for his pipe; Howard Hughes spent entire days on a chair in the middle of the supposedly
germ-free zone of his Beverly Hills Hotel suite; the composer Robert Schumann believed
that his musical compositions were dictated to him by Beethoven and other deceased
luminaries from their tombs; and Charles Dickens is said to have fended off imaginary
urchins with his umbrella as he walked the streets of London. ...
"In fact, creativity and eccentricity often go hand in hand, and researchers now
believe that both traits may be a result of how the brain filters incoming information.
Even in the business world, there is a growing appreciation of the link between
creative thinking and unconventional behavior, with increased acceptance of the
latter. ...
"In the past few decades psychologists and other scientists have explored the connection
using empirically validated measures of both creativity and eccentricity. To measure
creativity, researchers may look at an individual's record of creative achievements,
his or her involvement in creative activities or ability to think creatively (for
example, to come up with new uses for ordinary household items). To measure eccentricity,
researchers often use scales that assess schizotypal personality. ... Schizotypal
personality is a milder version of the clinical psychiatric condition called schizotypal
personality disorder, which is among a cluster of personality disorders labeled
'odd or eccentric' in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders. ... Not all schizotypal people have a personality disorder,
however. They are often very high functioning, talented and intelligent. Many of
my students at Harvard University, for example, score far above average on schizotypal
scales, as well as on creativity and intelligence measures. ...
"My research suggests that these manifestations of schizotypal personality in and
of themselves do not promote creativity; certain cognitive mechanisms that may underlie
eccentricity could also promote creative thinking, however. In my model of how creativity
and eccentricity are related, I theorize that one of these underlying mechanisms
is a propensity for cognitive disinhibition. ...
"Cognitive disinhibition is the failure to ignore information that is irrelevant
to current goals or to survival. We are all equipped with mental filters that hide
most of the processing that goes on in our brains behind the scenes. So many signals
come in through our sensory organs, for example, that if we paid attention to all
of them we would be overwhelmed. Furthermore, our brains are constantly accessing
imagery and memories stored in our mental files to process and decode incoming information.
Thanks to cognitive filters, most of this input never reaches conscious awareness.
There are individual differences in how much information we block out, however;
both schizotypal and schizophrenic individuals have been shown to have reduced functioning
of one of these cognitive filters, called latent inhibition (LI). Reduced LI appears
to increase the amount of unfiltered stimuli reaching our conscious awareness and
is associated with offbeat thoughts and hallucinations. ...
"Reduced cognitive filtering could explain the tendency of highly creative people
to focus intensely on the content of their inner world at the expense of social
or even self-care needs. (Beethoven, for example, had difficulty tending to his
own cleanliness.) When conscious awareness is overpopulated with unusual and unfiltered
stimuli, it is difficult not to focus attention on that inner universe. In 2003,
my colleague Jordan Peterson and I reported [that] ... we think that the reduction
in cognitive inhibition allows more material into conscious awareness that can then
be reprocessed and recombined in novel and original ways, resulting in creative
ideas. ...
"A brain-imaging study, done in 2010 by investigators at the Karolinska Institute
in Stockholm, suggests the propensity for both creative insights and schizotypal
experiences may result from a specific configuration of neurotransmitter receptors
in the brain. Using positron-emission tomography, Örjan de Manzano, Fredrik Ullén
and their colleagues examined the density of dopamine D2 receptors in the subcortical
region of the thalamus in 14 subjects who were tested for divergent-thinking skills.
The results indicate that thalamic D2 receptor densities are diminished in subjects
with high divergent-thinking abilities, similar to patterns found in schizophrenic
subjects in previous studies. The researchers believe that reduced dopamine binding
in the thalamus, found in both creative and schizophrenic subjects, may decrease
cognitive filtering and allow more information into conscious awareness.
"Clearly, however, not all eccentric individuals are creative. Work from our lab
indicates that other cognitive factors, such as high IQ and high working memory
capacity, enable some people to process and mentally manipulate extra information
without being overwhelmed by it. Through a series of studies, we have, in fact,
shown that a combination of lower cognitive inhibition and higher IQ is associated
with higher scores on a variety of creativity measures. The shared vulnerability
model suggests that at least a subgroup of highly creative individuals may share
some (but not all) biological vulnerability factors with individuals who suffer
from psychotic illnesses, such as schizophrenia. This vulnerability may allow the
highly creative person access to ideas and thoughts that are inaccessible to those
of us with less porous mental filters."
Author: Shelley Carson
Title: "The Unleashed Mind: Why Creative People Are Eccentric
Many highly creative people behave in ways that are viewed as
eccentric. Why? Researchers are finding that their creativity and their eccentricity
are rooted in the same cause -- a diminished ability to filter out nearly as much
of the constant stream of information as the average person, and thus the need to
process and organize this information in untypical ways. The term for this trait
is "cognitive disinhibition":
"Many highly creative people [display] personal behavior [that] sometimes strikes
others as odd. Albert Einstein picked up cigarette butts off the street to get tobacco
for his pipe; Howard Hughes spent entire days on a chair in the middle of the supposedly
germ-free zone of his Beverly Hills Hotel suite; the composer Robert Schumann believed
that his musical compositions were dictated to him by Beethoven and other deceased
luminaries from their tombs; and Charles Dickens is said to have fended off imaginary
urchins with his umbrella as he walked the streets of London. ...
"In fact, creativity and eccentricity often go hand in hand, and researchers now
believe that both traits may be a result of how the brain filters incoming information.
Even in the business world, there is a growing appreciation of the link between
creative thinking and unconventional behavior, with increased acceptance of the
latter. ...
"In the past few decades psychologists and other scientists have explored the connection
using empirically validated measures of both creativity and eccentricity. To measure
creativity, researchers may look at an individual's record of creative achievements,
his or her involvement in creative activities or ability to think creatively (for
example, to come up with new uses for ordinary household items). To measure eccentricity,
researchers often use scales that assess schizotypal personality. ... Schizotypal
personality is a milder version of the clinical psychiatric condition called schizotypal
personality disorder, which is among a cluster of personality disorders labeled
'odd or eccentric' in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders. ... Not all schizotypal people have a personality disorder,
however. They are often very high functioning, talented and intelligent. Many of
my students at Harvard University, for example, score far above average on schizotypal
scales, as well as on creativity and intelligence measures. ...
"My research suggests that these manifestations of schizotypal personality in and
of themselves do not promote creativity; certain cognitive mechanisms that may underlie
eccentricity could also promote creative thinking, however. In my model of how creativity
and eccentricity are related, I theorize that one of these underlying mechanisms
is a propensity for cognitive disinhibition. ...
"Cognitive disinhibition is the failure to ignore information that is irrelevant
to current goals or to survival. We are all equipped with mental filters that hide
most of the processing that goes on in our brains behind the scenes. So many signals
come in through our sensory organs, for example, that if we paid attention to all
of them we would be overwhelmed. Furthermore, our brains are constantly accessing
imagery and memories stored in our mental files to process and decode incoming information.
Thanks to cognitive filters, most of this input never reaches conscious awareness.
There are individual differences in how much information we block out, however;
both schizotypal and schizophrenic individuals have been shown to have reduced functioning
of one of these cognitive filters, called latent inhibition (LI). Reduced LI appears
to increase the amount of unfiltered stimuli reaching our conscious awareness and
is associated with offbeat thoughts and hallucinations. ...
"Reduced cognitive filtering could explain the tendency of highly creative people
to focus intensely on the content of their inner world at the expense of social
or even self-care needs. (Beethoven, for example, had difficulty tending to his
own cleanliness.) When conscious awareness is overpopulated with unusual and unfiltered
stimuli, it is difficult not to focus attention on that inner universe. In 2003,
my colleague Jordan Peterson and I reported [that] ... we think that the reduction
in cognitive inhibition allows more material into conscious awareness that can then
be reprocessed and recombined in novel and original ways, resulting in creative
ideas. ...
"A brain-imaging study, done in 2010 by investigators at the Karolinska Institute
in Stockholm, suggests the propensity for both creative insights and schizotypal
experiences may result from a specific configuration of neurotransmitter receptors
in the brain. Using positron-emission tomography, Örjan de Manzano, Fredrik Ullén
and their colleagues examined the density of dopamine D2 receptors in the subcortical
region of the thalamus in 14 subjects who were tested for divergent-thinking skills.
The results indicate that thalamic D2 receptor densities are diminished in subjects
with high divergent-thinking abilities, similar to patterns found in schizophrenic
subjects in previous studies. The researchers believe that reduced dopamine binding
in the thalamus, found in both creative and schizophrenic subjects, may decrease
cognitive filtering and allow more information into conscious awareness.
"Clearly, however, not all eccentric individuals are creative. Work from our lab
indicates that other cognitive factors, such as high IQ and high working memory
capacity, enable some people to process and mentally manipulate extra information
without being overwhelmed by it. Through a series of studies, we have, in fact,
shown that a combination of lower cognitive inhibition and higher IQ is associated
with higher scores on a variety of creativity measures. The shared vulnerability
model suggests that at least a subgroup of highly creative individuals may share
some (but not all) biological vulnerability factors with individuals who suffer
from psychotic illnesses, such as schizophrenia. This vulnerability may allow the
highly creative person access to ideas and thoughts that are inaccessible to those
of us with less porous mental filters."
Author: Shelley Carson
Title: "The Unleashed Mind: Why Creative People Are Eccentric