(hat tip to BoingBoing)
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Schizotypal personality and creativity
3 JulSome years ago, I did some research on schizotypy and paranormal beliefs in teachers. Through my reading, I found claims that schizotypy might be related to creativity. Here is a recent post at Deric’s Mind Blog on this topic:
“Park et al. examine individuals with schizotypal personality disorder, which is characterized by need for social isolation, anxiety in social situations, odd behavior and thinking, and often unconventional beliefs, but does not engage the false beliefs, unclear or confused thinking, and auditory hallucinations characteristic of schizophrenia.”
The origin of genius
20 MayLeonard Mlodinow explains that great discoveries are the consequence of hard work and offers this sage advice:
“Even if we are not scientists, every day we are challenged to make judgments and decisions about technical matters like vaccinations, financial investments, diet supplements and, of course, global warming. If our discourse on such topics is to be intelligent and productive, we need to dip below the surface and grapple with the complex underlying issues. The myths can seduce one into believing there is an easier path, one that doesn’t require such hard work.”
Mlodinow is an interesting guy, here is his Wikipedia page.
Daily routines of creative people
10 JanHere is a graphic representation of the daily routines of famous creative people. It is interesting to note the individual differences, for example – the odd sleeping pattern of Franz Kafka.
One needs to be careful here, this presentation is based on a sample that might not be representative of creative people in general.
(Hat tip to BoingBoing)
The art of Hayao Miyazaki
6 JulOne of my favorite films is My Neighbor Totoro, the magical creation of animator Hayao Miyazaki. Take a look at this website of images from this great artist:
Here is the trailer for My Neighbor Totoro:
Does body position affect creative thinking?
12 AprAn unusual paper published in Learning and Individual Differences. Here is the abstract:
“Sometimes people ponder on a problem when lying in bed at night. Previous studies revealed that in the seated body position, an approach motor action of arm flexion can improve creative thinking compared to an avoidance motor action of arm extension. However in the lying body position, the associations of arm flexion/extension to approach/avoidance motor action are converse. Therefore, there is an opposite prediction for the effect of arm posture on creative thinking. The study reported here asked the participants to work on Alternative Uses Task (AUT) problems while performing arm flexion and arm extension, in the body contexts of being seated on a chair or lying in bed. The results demonstrated that arm flexion and extension in the lying body position exerted effects on AUT performance in a converse pattern compared to that in the seated body position. This is the first study that revealed an interaction effect of body position and arm posture on creative thinking, which suggests that future embodiment theories need to consider the integrated effects of arm motor action and body position on cognitive processes.”
Related articles
Handedness and creativity
24 FebA post on NOVAnext discusses the evidence for a link between handedness and creativity. The post links to a paper, published in Frontiers in Psychology, titled “Degree of handedness, but not direction, is a systematic predictor of cognitive performance.” From that paper’s abstract:
“A growing body of evidence is reviewed showing that degree of handedness (consistent versus inconsistent) is a more powerful and appropriate way to classify handedness than the traditional one based on direction (right versus left). Experimental studies from the domains of episodic memory retrieval, belief updating/cognitive flexibility, risk perception, and more are described. These results suggest that inconsistent handedness is associated with increased interhemispheric interaction and increased access to processes localized to the right cerebral hemisphere.”
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