Creative people are a little crazy?
Earlier I described creative people in a way that made one commenter say it sounded like being "a perpetually angsty teenager."
Well, now there is some research showing a direct relationship between being a bit odd and being creative:New research on individuals with schizotypal personalities - people characterized by odd behavior and language but who are not psychotic or schizophrenic - offers the first neurological evidence that they are more creative than either normal or fully schizophrenic individuals, and rely more heavily on the right sides of their brains than the general population to access their creativity.
The work by Vanderbilt psychologists Brad Folley and Sohee Park was published online last week by the journal Schizophrenia Research.
"The idea that schizotypes have enhanced creativity has been out there for a long time but no one has investigated the behavioral manifestations and their neural correlates experimentally," Folley says. "Our paper is unique because we investigated the creative process experimentally and we also looked at the blood flow in the brain while research subjects were undergoing creative tasks."
. . .
Brugger hypothesized that schizotypes should make novel associations faster because they are better at accessing both hemispheres - a prediction that was verified in a subsequent study. His theory can also explain research which shows that a disproportional number of schizotypes and schizophrenics are neither right nor left hand dominant, but instead use both hands for a variety of tasks, suggesting that they recruit both sides of their brains for a variety of tasks more so than the average person.
"The lack of specialization for certain tasks in brain hemispheres could be seen as a liability, but the increased communication between the hemispheres actually could provide added creativity," Folley says.
Weird. Have I mentioned that I am ambidextrous?
(Hat-tip FuturePundit.)
Well, now there is some research showing a direct relationship between being a bit odd and being creative:New research on individuals with schizotypal personalities - people characterized by odd behavior and language but who are not psychotic or schizophrenic - offers the first neurological evidence that they are more creative than either normal or fully schizophrenic individuals, and rely more heavily on the right sides of their brains than the general population to access their creativity.
The work by Vanderbilt psychologists Brad Folley and Sohee Park was published online last week by the journal Schizophrenia Research.
"The idea that schizotypes have enhanced creativity has been out there for a long time but no one has investigated the behavioral manifestations and their neural correlates experimentally," Folley says. "Our paper is unique because we investigated the creative process experimentally and we also looked at the blood flow in the brain while research subjects were undergoing creative tasks."
. . .
Brugger hypothesized that schizotypes should make novel associations faster because they are better at accessing both hemispheres - a prediction that was verified in a subsequent study. His theory can also explain research which shows that a disproportional number of schizotypes and schizophrenics are neither right nor left hand dominant, but instead use both hands for a variety of tasks, suggesting that they recruit both sides of their brains for a variety of tasks more so than the average person.
"The lack of specialization for certain tasks in brain hemispheres could be seen as a liability, but the increased communication between the hemispheres actually could provide added creativity," Folley says.
Weird. Have I mentioned that I am ambidextrous?
(Hat-tip FuturePundit.)