Psych 129 (Creativity) Exam 2

Possible Connections between Affective Disorders and Creativity

(1) Amount of physical energy experienced - When a person is depressed, they have very little energy - In manic episodes though, the person has a lot of energy and is often highly productive; (2) Mood SWING effects - May take a person a long time to produce their book, but along the way, they may still end up with something good, despite their depression, by acting as their own editor; (3) Creative efforts may offer relief/catharsis for depression sufferers - Perhaps keeping busy by pursuing artistic endeavors may help alleviate depression by offering the sufferer an escape from the depressed feelings; (4) Immersing oneself in one's work may lead to depression - Their focus may lead to self-isolation and little time for anything but what they're working on

Martindale and Hasenfus (1978) Experiment 2

16 subjects performed a similar strong-writing task, except that (1) creativity was measured using the Remote Associates Test, and (2) researchers varied whether or not subjects were specifically told to be "creative" and "original"; Found same increase in alpha activity during the inspiration phase for the highly creative subjects - However, only when subjects were instructed to be creative and original; Concluded this is evidence of a change in brain activity in creative thinking is going on

Ludwig (1995)

60% of people in theater likely had alcoholism; Fiction writers - 41%; Musicians - 40%; Military, natural sciences, social sciences, social activism - under 10%; 36% of Musicians engaged in drug abuse; Theatre - 24%; Fiction writers - 19%; Poetry writers - 17%; Explorers, sports, military - very rare and virtually non-existent

Hypergraphia

A compulsive drive to write; Associated with a decrease in temporal lobe activity; Commonly occurs in cases where there is a lesion to the right temporal lobe; Caused by a disruption to the equilibrium between the right and left hemisphere to become disinhibited; Associated with increased creative DRIVE, but that doesn't mean they are producing high-quality creative PRODUCT - Creative drive might help increase creative skill through (1) practice effects, and (2) "Darwinian" model

Handedness and Hemisphericity

A person's dominant hemisphere is the one that tends to be more active while performing certain cognitive functions; Researchers have sometimes used a person's handedness as an indicator of hemispheric dominance (righties being left-hemisphere dominant, lefties being right-hemisphere dominant); In general, there haven't been many differences found in creativity of left-handers vs. right-handers

Mesolimbic Dopaminergic Pathway

Also known as the reward pathway and travels from the VTA to several structures of the limbic system

TenHouten (1994)

Compared 8 split-brain patients to 8 control subjects who watched a 3-minute film about the death of a baby and a boy; Asked to write four sentences expressing what they felt about the film and answered questions; Found split-brain patients to be more alexithymic, using very few affect-laden words and adjectives - General lack of creativity in responses; Overall conclusion that creativity involves the interaction of both hemispheres

Bourassa & Vaugeois (2001)

Compared creativity effects of marijuana on regular (3x/week) vs. novice (never) users; Marijuana had no effect on the divergent thinking of novices, but it reduced divergent thinking in the regular users; Thus, some research shows enhancement of creativity, while some shows inhibition

Primary Process Cognition

Described as irrational, free associative, and perceptual; Present in dreaming, children, and psychotic states

Weckowitz et al (1975)

Effects of marijuana may depend on amount ingested; Found that low levels of marijuana associated with enhanced performance on divergent thinking tasks while higher doses inhibited performance; Thus, research effects are somewhat uncertain regarding the effects of marijuana and differ based on the individual

Prefrontal Cortex (PFC)

Enables such high-level cognitive functions as the self-construct, self-reflective consciousness, willed action, planning, abstract thinking, and much more; Three basic functions allow these high-level functions - (1) Working memory, (2) Temporal integration, and (3) Sustained and directed attention; Divided into (1) Dorsolateral and (2) Ventromedial areas

Waller et al (1993)

Evaluated data from 45 pairs of MZ twins reared apart, one set of identical triplets reared apart, and 32 pairs of DZ twins reared apart; Subjects completed Creative Personality Scale; For MZ twins, moderately high correlation of r = .54, however, very low non-significant correlation of r = -.06 for DZ twins; Creativity is an EMERGENIC trait, one that emerges from interaction among a cluster of more fundamental traits; Unlikely to run in families

Overinclusive Thought

Excessive activation of semantic memory; Seems to loosen conceptual boundaries

Ito (1997)

Explained how cerebellum manipulates ideas in similar way to how it manipulates motor control; Ideas/concepts are manipulated just like limbs are in movement (e.g. MENTALLY arranging furniture is similar to ACTUALLY controlling limbs to accomplish same thing); When we repeatedly perform mental manipulations, just like with physical actions, the cerebellum works to make those manipulations faster, smoother, and more efficient

Connection between Creativity and Psychosis

Eysenck proposes that both creative people and psychotic people score high on his trait of psychoticism; He does not claim that psychosis produces creativity, or that people who are highly creative are psychotic; Eysenck's main ideas are that (1) having a high score on his psychoticism trait is necessary for creativity, and (2) a person with a high psychoticism score may, at some point, develop psychosis or suffer some kind of psychotic episode during their lives; Eysenck also cites research suggesting that while psychotics do have quite original thinking, their thinking is so original that it is unrealistic - not creative thought; Eysenck also proposes a genetic basis for psychoticism - High levels of creativity have been found in descendants of psychotic parents

Barron (1963)

Found that creative people often have antisocial tendencies; This is consistent with the idea of PRISONERS being creative (since they are antisocial); Similarity - creative people and prisoners are both unlikely to take authority at its word, seek to challenge authority, and look for their own solutions; Agnew (1989) suggested that delinquency may be a creative enterprise for many adolescents; However, the antisocial nature of prisoners are quite possibly different from the "antisocial" nature of a creative artist, and prisoners show UNCREATIVE tendencies as well, such as how they are seemingly unable to see alternatives to crime and aggression, and to see how they could achieve their goals by any means other than antisocial means

Burke et al (1989)

Gave both visual and verbal divergent thinking tasks to left-handers and right-handers; Found that for visual divergent thinking tasks, left-handers did slightly better than right handers; Found that for verbal divergent thinking tasks, no difference between left handers and right handers; Concluded that in tasks where left-handers have a slight advantage, they may have developed a creative coping skill because they've had to adjust to environments created for right-handed people - May contribute to their flexibility and creative thinking

Carlsson, Wendt, & Risberg (2000)

Had high-creativity and low-creativity subjects perform creativity test ("uses" test); Found that high creativity people showed different brain activity than the low creativity people; High creativity people showed a bilateral increase in brain activity in various areas of the prefrontal cortex compared to low creativity subjects

Dykes & McGhie (1976)

Had subjects perform a DICHOTIC SHADOWING TASK in which they listen to 2 different stereo channels, repeating words heard in one ear; Creative and schizophrenic subjects better than controls at identifying items presented on IRRELEVANT stereo channel; Supports the ideas that creative people tend not to screen out so-called "irrelevant" details; Creative people show reduced latent inhibition

Dorsolateral PFC

Higher up and to the side; Left is involved in semantic memory retrieval; Right is involved in sustained attention; Generally connected to temporal, occipital, and parietal regions of the cortex

Regressive Imagery Dictionary

Identifies words and phrases indicative of primary process thinking

Andreasen (1997)

Investigated 30 creative writers (university faculty); Gave structured interviews to determine history of mental illness; Compared to control group matched for age, sex, educational level, but having varied occupations (e.g. lawyers, social workers); Found a strikingly high incidence of affective disorders in the sample of writers; 80% of the creative writers had some form of affective disorder, compared to 30% of the control sample; Likewise, a significant difference was found between the groups regarding bipolar disorder as well; 43% of the writers had some form of bipolar disorder, versus 10% of the control sample

Martindale et al (1986)

Investigated differences in EEG activity when one is involved in primary process thinking; Studies suggest creative people engage in more primary process thinking and that their fantasy narratives contain more primary process content; Recorded EEG activity as subjects wrote a fantasy story; Stories also evaluated in terms of primary process content using the regressive imagery dictionary; Theory was that primary process cognition is relative to greater RH activation then LH activation; Found that primary process thinking was associated with hemispheric lateralization with greater RH activity than LH activity; However this was a baseline asymmetry rather than the short-term "inspirational" phase asymmetry they had predicted; Concluded that people with more RH activation tend to think in a more primary process way

Norlander & Gustafson (1996)

Investigated effect of alcohol consumption on different phases of creative process; Subjects divided into alcohol, placebo, and control groups; Wednesday - subjects asked to plan an experiment to investigate the relative importance of heredity and the environment; Subjects immediately gave possible ideas and anything coming to mind about the task; Subject given pocket-sized notebook with pen attached and told to think about this problem for next 2 days, writing down every idea that occurs to them; Alcohol/Placebo groups given 2 bottles of liquid (alcohol or placebo) to drink Wednesday night and Thursday night just before bed; Friday - subject describes experiment plan and researchers collect their notebooks; A panel of judges rated the scientific value/creativity of ideas in journal, counting the frequency of times they wrote ideas that were (to some degree) modifications of previous ideas (measure of incubation); Found that the alcohol group produced more frequent and more original incubations in their diaries than the control or placebo groups; In particular, the alcohol group had far more ideas on Thursday and Friday mornings - Likely to have still been under the influence of alcohol; Alcohol seemed to be related to improved incubation

Norlander & Gustafson (1998)

Investigated effects of alcohol on divergent thinking; Subjects given "uses" task under one of three conditions - control (no alcohol), alcohol-influenced (.08 blood-alcohol level), and placebo; Results indicated that the group who had received the alcohol had higher ORIGINALITY scores than the control or placebo groups; However, the alcohol group had lower FLEXIBILITY scores than the control and placebo groups; FLUENCY was not significantly affected by alcohol; Other studies with lower doses of alcohol showed no influence on creativity (i.e. .05 blood alcohol level); People end up having slightly more original ideas when drunk, but they are less flexible

West (1983)

Investigated effects of marijuana on creativity; Subjects wrote stories after looking at picture from Thematic Apperception Test (TAT); Subjects wrote a story first without being under the influence (baseline condition) before writing a story while under the influence of marijuana or a placebo; Stories analyzed with the Regressive Imagery Dictionary (for primary process content); Found that those under the influence of marijuana wrote stories with more primary process content than the control/placebo content; Individual subjects had more primary process content when they were under the influence of marijuana than when they weren't

Hoppe (1988)

Investigated how much AFFECT (the "feeling" or experience of emotion) split-brain patients experience when shown an emotional film (ex - child disappearing from swing); Subjects watched emotionally-evocative film and described feelings and reactions to film; Found split-brain subjects descriptions were significantly different from controls'; Split-brain descriptors were very unemotional and lacked affect - Described as "episodic", focusing on the sequence of events only - known as ALEXITHYMIA, lack of emotional awareness, relating and social attachment - characterized by (1) Difficulty distinguishing, identifying, and appreciating emotions, (2) Difficulty describing feelings to other people, and (3) Decreased imaginal processes; Have difficulty being creative because they don't get excited or are interested in thinking creatively

Healey (2005)

Investigated kids 10-12 years of age (half with ADHD, half without); Is there evidence of ADHD being associated with high creativity? Creativity measured using Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT); IQ also measured; No significant difference between the IQs of the two groups; No significant difference between the 2 groups on either of their creativity measures - Even on the 5 subscales of TTCT, only 1 differed significantly between the two groups with controls scores being higher on illateration divergent thinking tasks; Concluded that ADHD children are no more creative than those without ADHD

Nicol & Long (1996)

Investigated music hobbyists and music therapists; Collected scores on various creative thinking measure and recorded subject stress level with the perceived stress scale (measures degree to which person's life situations in past month are perceived as stressful); In the sample of music hobbyists, they found a significant correlation between high levels of creative thinking and lower stress levels; In the sample of music therapists, they found no difference in stress levels between the high-level and low-level creative thinkers; Suggested that the 2 groups have different coping resources available - Music therapists have training in psychology which may expose them to a broader range of coping strategies, whereas the music hobbyists had no specific psychology training; However, creative thinking can reduce peoples' stress level

Deliberate Creativity

Involves deliberately focusing attention on a problem and putting effort into coming up with a creative solution

Commissures

Large bundles of nerve fibers that pass neural messages from one hemisphere to another; Connect the two hemispheres; Largest is the corpus callosum

Lateralization and Asymmetry of Hemispheres

Left and right hemispheres are symmetric anatomically, but different in function; Speech in left hemisphere, but facial recognition in right hemisphere - known as lateralization; Contralateral processing occurs when our hemispheric control is opposite the side of that hemisphere - i.e. motor function; There is a tendency to oversimplify functions of different hemispheres; Virtually any cognitive function involves both hemispheres to some degree; Thinking of left hemisphere as where "logical" and "rational thought" occurs, and right hemisphere being where "creativity' occurs is oversimplified

Secondary Process Cognition

Logical and realistic; Occurs in normal waking consciousness in adults

Peterson & Lansky (1997)

Looked at Univ. of Cincinnati architecture program; Found that 29% of faculty were left-handed (~10% in general population); Left-handers performed better in program than right-handers; In general, more left-handers apply to architecture schools; Looking at handedness is not a DIRECT measure of brain function, it is only inferred based on their dominant hand - the usefulness of this information regarding lateralization is limited

Spontaneous Creativity

Occurs during periods of de-focused attention (i.e. insight)

Psychoticism

Personality dimension related to (1) risk-taking, recklessness, and impulsiveness, (2) disregard for common sense, (3) non-conformist behavior, and (4) inappropriate emotional expression

Flaherty (2005)

Proposed model of creativity focusing on the interaction of (1) the frontal lobes, (2) the temporal lobe, and (3) the limbic system; Proposes a link between CREATIVE DRIVE and HYPERGRAPHIA and MANIA; Suggests that alterations in functions of the amygdala may cause the passionate interests in manic patients; In most cases, the manic patient's "passionate pursuits" are misguided or risky, but in mild bipolar disorder, the passion can be turned to creative uses; Also suggests that the high "goal-directness" of creative arousal may be driven by the MESOLIMBIC DOPAMINERGIC PATHWAY; So, our emotions play a role in creative DRIVE, in particular, the limbic system (especially the amygdala and mesolimbic pathway)

Carson et al (2003) Part 1

Proposed that moderating factor differentiating psychosis and creativity regarding latent inhibition is HIGH GENERAL INTELLIGENCE; Had subjects (Harvard undergrads) complete measures of creativity, IQ, personality, and a latent inhibition task; Creativity measures - CREATIVITY ACHIEVEMENT QUESTIONNAIRE (CAQ) measured lifetime creative accomplishment in art and science, Divergent thinking tasks, and Creative Personality Scale looked for personality indicators of creativity; Low latent inhibition scores significantly and highly correlated with (1) High creative achievement, (2) Creative personality, and (3) High originality in divergent thinking tasks; Also looked at "eminent creative achievers" - those who had made a significant contribution to a creative domain before age of 21; Found that the latent inhibition scores of the high (eminent) achievers were significantly lower than the scores of the control group; High (eminent) achievers had reduced latent inhibition compared to the low achievers; There was a much higher percentage of subjects with low latent inhibition scores in the high creative achievement group than in the low creative achievement group

Bipolar Disorder

Psychological disorder most associated with creativity; Patients typically show increase in creativity when in manic phase; Associated with enlargement of amygdala

Stress

Psychological state of tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances

Latent Inhibition

Refers to the capacity of the brain to screen out from our current attentional focus stimuli that were previously experienced as irrelevant; Schizophrenia has been related to a reduction in this capacity; Research has suggested that a reduction in this capacity is also associated with the big five personality trait of OPENESS - attention to inner feelings/active imagination, preference for variety/intellectual curiosity, and consistently associated with divergent thinking, creative thinking, and creative achievement

Eysenck (2003)

Relates creativity and psychosis to PSYCHOTICISM; People high in psychoticism will exhibit some qualities commonly found in psychotics and may be more susceptible to becoming psychotic in certain environments; OVERINCLUSIVE THOUGHT is related to psychoticism -Overinclusive thought can lead to psychosis, but often, the person will have the benefits of without the psychosis - A person who is high in the psychoticism trait will have this tendency toward overinclusive thought, but not to the degree that they are considered psychotic; In general, it has been found that in highly creative people, they generally have higher psychoticism scores than people with lower creativity

Creativity and Stress Levels

Research suggests that creative thinkers have MORE stress than non-creative people; Research suggests that it's not the stressful events themselves that affect one's mental and emotional health; it's how they perceive, feel, and think about those events; Implies that there are no real environmental stressors, there are potential stressors in the environment, but whether they actually cause stress is based on the individual's perception of that event; Sensitivity is associated with creative individuals and may contribute to higher levels of stressful interpretations of events

Cerebellum

Research suggests that this area may make significant contributions to creativity; Research suggests that it is involved in general timing and sequencing, not just with motor processes, but with cognitive processes as well (including those of working memory); Organized into many parallel circuits allowing powerful processing capabilities; The basic circuitry of these circuits is the same, what differs is the particular incoming information a circuit receives from other parts of the brain, and particular output destination for the information; So, the basic processing of incoming information would seem to be similar, no matter if it is motor, sensory, or cognitive information; Has numerous connections with the PFC - Recieves input from PFC via the pons, and sends output to PFC via the thalamus; Researchers believe it would be useful in processing NOVEL situation requiring creative/innovative solutions - In processing a novel situation, a person may need to engage in preliminary processing before taking action (processing potential consequences), which activates working memory in PFC - Via numersou parallel connections, this information in working memory can be processed very rapidly and a quick decision can be made; These deep connections between PFC and this area (and its known processing capabilities) strongly suggest a role in creative thinking

Hirt (1999)

Review of studies on research and creativity; Found that people in positive mood states have reliably been shown to be more creative on a range of tasks than people in other mood states; Finding was very robust regardless of how the researchers induced the positive mood; Creative tasks include the Remote Associates Test, Insight Problems, and Word association tasks; Positive mood may increase creativity because it induces overinclusive thought

Nichols (1978)

Reviewed 10 twin studies of divergent thinking; Found average correlations for identical twins of r = .61 , and average correlations for fraternal twins of r = 0.50; Indicates that about 22% of variation in divergent thinking scores is due to the influence of genetics

Savants

Show amazing excellence in some area (often creative areas) despite being severely brain-impaired; How might they acquire their skills? - Through repetitive practice? Maybe they have more highly developed brains in their particular domain? Probably not, these explanations don't explain all of their skills; Perhaps their skills are largely INNATE and reside equally in everyone - they just aren't accessible without a rare form of brain impairment! - EXAMPLE our brains possess algorithms for calculating the shape of an object from surface shading; We aren't CONSCIOUS of this shading, or we could all draw without training; However, their brain damage enables access to this information; Snyder et al (2003) tested this theory!

Eisenman (1992)

Subjects - Prisoners diagnosed as "conduct disordered" or "psychotic"; Measured prisoners' creativity by testing their preference for polygons that varied in complexity (creative people prefer complexity, and this technique had been used in lots of previous research); Also used Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), where prisoners made up stories about a series of 5 ambiguous pictures; found that both types of prisoners were more likely to prefer SIMPLE POLYGONS to complex - suggested generally low creativity for both groups, Overwhelming preference for simple polygons in the psychotic prisoners; 25/300 TAT stories were rated as creative - 12/25 were created by conduct-disordered prisoners, thus conduct disorder prisoners were significantly more likely to have their stories rated as creative; Overall, the prisoners were rated in both tasks as being low in creativity; Psychotic prisoners were even lower in creativity than conduct-disordered prisoners; Criminals are not creative in socially-unacceptable ways; Psychotics' ideas would not be considered creative

Norlander & Gustafson (1997)

Subjects created a basic sketch based on a poem they had read; After drinking alcohol (or not!) they were given chance to finalize sketch with details, colors, etc (reflective of VERIFICATION phase); Panel of judges rated their "handicraft" at finishing up the sketches; Found that being under the influence of alcohol was related to poor verification; Again, study we looked at in chapter 3 (Norlander & Gustafson, 1998) looked at the ILLUMINATION phase and found alcohol to be related to high originality and low flexibility, but unrelated to fluency

Kaufmann & Vosburg (2002)

Subjects induced into positive, negative, or neutral mood; Subject performed 4 divergent thinking tasks and performance recorded across 4-minute interval; Positive mood was beneficial early on, but after the subjects had produced a number of ideas, negative and neutral moods seemed to be better; Proposed that positive mood is most beneficial to us under unconstrained solution requirements, and most detrimental under constrained solution requirements

Kaufmann & Vosburg (1997)

Subjects solved 2 insight problems (two-string problem / hat rack problem); Subjects categorized by mood (positive, negative, neutral); Found that positive mood did not enhance subjects' ability to solve these insight problems - Subjects in a positive mood were out-performed by people in both negative and neutral moods

Dietrich (2004)

Suggested that deliberate creativity is particularly likely to involve the activation of the dorsolateral PFC - Deliberate creativity involves effortful, constructive problem solving and depends on the ability to deliberately direct attention to relevant information and access information from semantic memory; Spontaneous creativity is primarily due to temporal, occipital, and parietal regions in the absence of directive attention and searching and accessing specific semantic memories; So, deliberate thinking seems to be vitally dependent on the PFC's network involved in FOCUSING ATTENTION and on consciousness and ability to hold relevant content in mind (WORKING MEMORY!) long enough for a creative solution to occur

Commissurotomy

Surgical severing of commissures; Patients who receive this procedure are known as "split-brain" patients

Affect

The experience or FEELING of emotion

Corpus Callosum

The largest commissure

Ventromedial PFC

To in the middle and lower; Heavily connected to the limbic system, particularly the amygdala and cingulate cortex; Most common deficit associated with lesions of this area is impaired social function; Creative people are often described as being eccentric, nonconformist, radical, and (sometimes) socially inappropriate - might damage be beneficial to creativity? - No, unconventional tendencies of creative people tend to be intentional and controllable

Martindale & Hasenfus (1978)

Took EEG readings of 12 creative-writing students as they went through phases of story-writing activity - Waiting for study to begin, During a 3-minute "inspiration" period (thinking about what they would write), While actually writing the story (the "elaboration" phase); Students had been rated in creativity by their creative writing professor; Asked to make up story about a man who meets a woman and asks her out; Asked to "use their imagination" and make up story of who the man and woman are, how they met, and what will happen; They were specifically asked to be creative and original; Found that "highly creative" writers had significantly higher alpha activity during the inspiration phase than during the elaboration phase; Less creative subjects showed no difference in EEG activity during any of the different phases of the process

Snyder et al (2003)

Used Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to stimulate temporary lesions of the left fronto-temporal lobe; The fronto-temporal lobe implicated in savant syndrome in young artistic savants and savants who emerge late in life due to fronto-temporal lobe dementia; Eleven subjects given drawing and proofreading tasks performed before, during, and after TMS; Drawing results - 4 out of 11 subjects showed stylistic changes in their drawings after TMS with them being more life-like, flamboyant, and complex, 3 out of the 4 reported altered states of perception and were more alert and conscious of detail, 1 subject wanted to write an essay, drawings did not revert to pre-TMS style after 45 mins; Proofreading results - Savants often described as atypically LITERAL, tending to concentrate on parts than on the whole, allowing them to see world in a less-biased light, This suggests that savants may be better proofreaders than others, Subjects looked for grammatical errors in short proverbs, 2 subjects (who had also shown drawing improvement) also showed improvement in proofreading after TMS, TMS caused impairment leading to savant-like ability to see details of the PARTS and not be fooled by what they expected to see, Snyder's explanation for the effects was that in the normal brain, the conceptual networks concerned with MEANING tend to inhibit networks concerned with detail, and that by inhibiting these networks, it may facilitate conscious access to literal details, leading to savant-like skills; This is more evidence of the role of the temporal lobe in creativity - impeding the activity of temporal lobes can change level of detail we are conscious of, leading to increase of certain creative abilities

Disinhibition

Weakening of restraint against performing actions; Symptoms similar to MANIA, which has been found to be associated with increased creativity

Darwinian Model

When high motivation causes more ideas or works to be produced; In general, the more novel ideas will be created as well; Predicts that subjects who come ups with the best ideas will typically be the most driven and productive; Evidence seen in threshold theory

Carson et al (2003) Part 2

Why are reduced latent inhibition scores associated with both high creativity and ALSO psychosis? Perhaps IQ? In their study, it was the COMBINATION of high IQ and reduced latent inhibition that predicted high CREATIVE ACHIEVEMENT; For subjects with reduced latent inhibition, people with IQ over 120 had MUCH higher creative achievement scores than those with moderate (under 120) IQ; For high latent inhibition, IQ didn't make much difference; Also, having reduce latent inhibition WITHOUT particularly high IQ didn't lead to significantly high creative achievement; Proposed that the difference between normal and highly creative cognition seems to be not only the reduced latent inhibition effect of failing to filter out irrelevant stimuli, but also having a high IQ; Suggests that highly creative people and psychosis-prone people may have similarities in their reduced latent-inhibition, but whether this gets manifested as a predisposition for high creative potential may be this factor of high IQ; A person with a high IQ may be able to override their deficit in early attentional processing with a later, higher-level mechanism of selective attention and processing; Highly creative person's reduced latent inhibition may give them access to a greater inventory of unfiltered stimuli during early processing which increases the odds of original thought, and their high IQ is able to make up for their other more psychosis-related aspects of reduced latent inhibition

Ludwig (1995)

Wrote "The Price of Greatness" which investigated creativity/mental illness link (over 1,000 eminent subjects); Found that depression was the highest in poets (77%), fiction writers (59%), artists (50%), non-fiction writers (47%), and composers (46%); Artistic types (architecture, theater, art, music, writers/poets) - 50% had depression; Social types (sports, social activism, social figure, companion) - 27%; Investigative types (natural/social sciences) - 24%; Enterprising types (business, exploration, military, public office) - 20%; Mania was the highest in actors (17%), poets (13%), architects (13%), and nonfiction writers (11%); Artistic types - 10% mania; Investigative types - 0% mania