Aspies For Freedom

I found some mighty interesting articles on schizotypy and creativity! As I suspect I might have quite some schizotypal traits myself, I am positively amazed to see that indeed my creativity might be linked to this neurologically! Also I noticed that being busy with painting and also with other creative activities, I can become 'tranced' at times. And once I even had it while doing a creative course at university, where I was painting and they were calling my name and I wasn't at all reacting to it for a while, until 'they got through to me'. Oops... :grin:

Anywayz... below are the articles I found related to the subject:

Linking eccentricity and creativity:

Odd behavior and creativity may go hand in hand

By Melanie Moran
Published: September 6, 2005

Often viewed as a hindrance, having a quirky or socially awkward approach to life may be the key to becoming a great artist, composer or inventor.

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."

Folley and Park conducted two experiments to compare the creative thinking processes of schizotypes, schizophrenics and normal control subjects. In the first experiment, the researchers showed research subjects a variety of household objects and asked them to make up new functions for them. The results showed that the schizotypes were better able to creatively suggest new uses for the objects, while the schizophrenics and average subjects performed similarly to one another.

"Thought processes for individuals with schizophrenia are often very disorganized, almost to the point where they can’t really be creative because they cannot get all of their thoughts coherent enough to do that," Folley observes. "Schizotypes, on the other hand, are free from the severe, debilitating symptoms surrounding schizophrenia and also have an enhanced creative ability."

As a way to measure their creativity, research subjects were shown a variety of everyday objects, such as a spool of thread and a fork, as well as more ambiguous objects, such as a cocktail jigger and cheese grater, and then were asked to make up new functions for them.

In the second experiment, the three groups again were asked to identify new uses for everyday objects as well as to perform a basic control task while the activity in their prefrontal lobes was monitored using a brain scanning techniques called near-infrared optical spectroscopy. The brain scans showed that all groups used both brain hemispheres for creative tasks, but that the activation of the right hemispheres of the schizotypes was dramatically greater than that of the schizophrenic and average subjects, suggesting a positive benefit of schizotypy.

"In the scientific community, the popular idea that creativity exists in the right side of the brain is thought to be ridiculous, because you need both hemispheres of your brain to make novel associations and to perform other creative tasks," Folley says. "We found that all three groups, schizotypes, schizophrenics and normal controls, did use both hemispheres when performing creative tasks. But the brain scans of the schizotypes showed a hugely increased activation of the right hemisphere compared to the schizophrenics and the normal controls."

This diagram outlines how the divergent thinking task was carried out. The subjects were first shown a target object. They were then asked to identify other objects, also shown on the screen, that were similar in color to the target by pressing the numbers on a keyboard that corresponded to the objects. The subjects were then asked to identify which of the other objects could be "used" with the target by pressing the appropriate keys. At the end of the sequence, the participants were asked to verbally explain their responses to the researcher to verify their decision making during the "uses" phase of the experiment. The color-matching task served as a control to help the researchers distinguish between times when the subjects were simply putting the objects in categories and when they were actually devising new uses for them.

The researchers believe that the results offer support for the idea that schizotypes and other psychoses-prone populations draw on the left and right sides of their brains differently than the average population, and that this bilateral use of the brain for a variety of tasks may be related to their enhanced creativity.

In support of this theory, Folley points to research by Swiss neuroscientist Peter Brugger who found that everyday associations, such as recognizing the car key on your keychain, and verbal abilities are controlled by the left hemisphere while novel associations, such as finding a new use for a object or navigating a new place, are controlled by the right hemisphere.

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 than the average person does.

"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.

Folley, who is in the process of completing his dissertation at Vanderbilt, is currently pursuing a clinical internship and research at the University of California Los Angeles. Park is an associate professor of psychology and an investigator in the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development.

The work was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
SOURCE

I don't recognize the mating success very much *cough* but at least it gives some hope that schizotypy can be a desired trait as well, not just an undesired one!

Schizotypy, creativity and mating success in humans

The more creative a person is, the more sexual partners they are likely to have, according to a pioneering study which could explain the behaviour of notorious womanisers such as poets Lord Byron and Dylan Thomas.
The research, by the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and the Open University in the UK, found that professional artists and poets have around twice as many sexual partners as those who do not indulge in these creative activities.

The authors also delved into the personalities of artists and poets and found they shared certain traits with mentally ill patients. These traits were linked with an increased sexual activity and are thought to have evolved because they contribute to the survival of the human species.

Some 425 British men and women, including a sample of visual artists and poets and schizophrenic patients, were surveyed for the report, which is published in the academic journal, The Proceedings of the Royal Society (B). Although creative types have long been associated with increased sexual activity, this the first time that this link has been proved by research.

Study participants filled in questionnaires which asked about their degree of creative activity in poetry and visual art, their psychiatric history, and their history of sexual encounters since the age of 18. They were also required to answer questions on a 'schizotypy inventory', a breakdown of characteristics linked with schizophrenic patients.

The average number of sexual partners for professional artists and poets was between four and ten, compared with a mean of three for non-creative types. Statistics also showed the average number of sexual partners rose in line with an increase in the amount of creative activity a person took part in.

The lead author of the study, Dr Daniel Nettle, lecturer in psychology with Newcastle University's School of Biology, suggested two key reasons for the findings. He said: "Creative people are often considered to be very attractive and get lots of attention as a result. They tend to be charismatic and produce art and poetry that grabs people's interest.

"It could also be that very creative types lead a bohemian lifestyle and tend to act on more sexual impulses and opportunities, often purely for experience's sake, than the average person would. Moreover, it's common to find that this sexual behaviour is tolerated in creative people. Partners, even long-term ones, are less likely to expect loyalty and fidelity from them."

Dr Nettle added that the results suggested an evolutionary reason for why certain personality traits that serious artists and poets were found to share with schizophrenic patients perpetuated in society.

He added: "These personality traits can manifest themselves in negative ways, in that a person with them is likely to be prone to the shadows of full-blown mental illness such as depression and suicidal thoughts. This research shows there are positive reasons, such as their role in mate attraction and species survival, for why these characteristics are still around."

Yet although some 'schizotypal' traits are linked with high numbers of partners, schizophrenic patients do not experience this level of sexual activity. Dr Nettle said these people tend to suffer from acute social withdrawal and emotional flatness - characteristics that the researchers found were linked with a reduced number of sexual partners.

SOURCE

just wondering .... did they check at all how "creative" the creative types were being with their own sexual histories?!

I took a personality disorder test thing, and I came out very likely to be schizotypal.

Im very creative, I write stories and poerty. But I cannot compose music and draw to save my life.

Natalia, I think the "creative licence" about how many sexual partners and what happened was also a problem in the Shere Hite and Masters & Johnson studies on sexual activity and yet some people take everything that came out of those studies as gospel.

I guess I think I had sort of heard of that, and was applying the same scepticism...

right, I also don't believe that sexual attraction thing very much, I think it's popularity which might contribute to a person being more sexually attractive (and sometimes creativity leads to popularity), but I believe there are faaaar more creative people who are *not* popular than creative people who are!! Moreover, many popular people who are considered sexually attractive, are not that creative at all! :roll:
I think it's one of those theories with a big 'blind spot' because they focused too much on their hypothesis and forgot to look at a wider area.

The connection between schizotypy and creativity is more widely accepted though.

This is another one I just found:

Creative Genius or Psychotic? A Look at the Strong Positive Correlation Between Creativity and Psychoses
by Jonathan S. Byrd

read full paper here

excerpts:
This paper postulates that there is a strong positive correlation between traits associated with creativity and traits associated with psychoses. Indeed, some of the relevant traits are shared. There are several traits that go hand in hand with creativity. It will be shown that two of these "creative" traits, latent inhibition and fantasy proneness, also have a strong positive correlation with certain psychoses. As intelligence and creativity are often linked, we will also discuss intelligence as it relates to creativity. Thus it will be shown how latent inhibition, intelligence, and fantasy proneness all factor into a theory of how creativity and psychoses are intertwined.

[...]

Reduced LI scores in humans has been associated with psychotic states or psychotic proneness, and as reduced levels of LI produce higher levels of creativity, one can see the correlation between creativity and psychoses. "These results support the theory that highly creative individuals and psychotic-prone individuals may possess neurobiological similarities, perhaps genetically determined, that present either as psychotic predisposition on the one hand or as unusual creative potential on the other" (Carson, Peterson, & Higgins, 2003, p. 505).

I am Aspie, have severe bipolar as well, and have had a couple of long duration psychotic episodes in my life from bipolar mania.  I have been told I am extremely creative, although I hate being called a "genius" because of it.

Some of my most inventive, creative moments was when I was close to or in psychosis.  It is the scariest thing I have ever gone through, but, I must say that having experienced it there is most definitely a link between the it and creativity.

I have never heard of schizotype before I read this thread - but it might explain a lot about me and how creative I am.  I sing, write (music and stories/scripts), act/direct, draw/paint/sculpt, build costumes/patterns, and I have been told I am a natural at most of these things... once I get a little bit of training I seem to internalize it quickly.

One of the things I am good at is taking a costume I want to make and coming up with unusual solutions of every day objects or new ways of using craft materials to make them.  For instance, I can make craft foam look like leather...

I don't think all the symptoms/traits apply to me though. They USED to when I was growing up, but I've worked through a lot. It was a nightmare for me working in an office - and I never fit in and acted paranoid and as if I couldn't 'handle' the pressure (crying at work was not unusual for me when there were too many demands from too many directions). The only way I could function was to create databases to organize everything...  which kept me being 'useful' despite my emotional 'instability'.

But I was in the wrong job doing the wrong thing - now I stay home and write and I'm very well-adjusted.

The more I read and learn, the more I'm convinced that 'disorders' happen because people who are unusual and need a different approach to the way they are cared for and taught are neglected and abuse in the areas where they should be getting attention and understanding.

And as soon as they start exhibit abnormal behavior, instead of realizing their environment might be damaging to them (even if not to NT's) they are stuck with a lable to figure out how to force them to conform...

Yes there is a thin line. And I play hop-scotch across it all day long.

The person that rocks back and fourth in mental institutions is probably smarter than most.