Low Latent Inhibition and the High IQ Schizophrenic
Schizophrenia exists on a spectrum... As with Autism, there are many shades of schizotypal symptoms. While not florid psychosis, the hypersensitivity of low LI often goes hand in hand with visionary or hypnagogic-type sensory phenomena.
Those are what are referred to as positive symptoms. The negative symptoms, the thought disorder, for instance, represents a particularly devastating part of the spectrum. Working memory, abstract thinking, social and organizational capacities...these cognitive faculties are lost as the frontal cortex gradually degrades, representing an actual measurable loss of brain mass.
Research by Carson shows how high IQ can help stave off the devastating aspects of thought-disordered schizophrenia - being able to utilize the increased associations and low LI of schizophrenia to create novel "recombinant" thought associations. This ability to relate concepts that the typical person does not see as connected is tied to what she calls "eminent creative achievement" - that is, the most creative people of our species are often high IQ schizophrenics.
