Madness & creativity - is there a link? - print version · Madness & creativity Is there a link?...

Madness & creativityIs there a link?

Andreas Kyriacou Center for Neuroscience, Switzerland

DD303 Nottingham Residential School, July 16th, 2007

1Montag, 16. Juli 2007

Overview

! Introduction

! Why look for a link?

! Former research findings

! Measures & definitions of creativity

! Zurich study

! Conclusions


Why look for a link?

! Cases of highly creative individuals who suffered from psychoses

! Long tradition of linking creativity to personality disorders! “haunted by a demon” Socrates

! melancholy Aristotle

! schizophrenia Lombroso

! neurosis Freud

Introduction - Zurich Study - Conclusions

Peter Nashmathematician

Peter GreenFleetwood MacSyd Barret

Meera Popkin, actor

Tom Harrell

Antonin Artaudactor, artist

Kurt Gödelmathematician

Clara Bowactor

diagnosed with schizophrenia


Former research findings

! Some investigations revealed high levels of creativity in healthy individuals with proneness for psychosis (Fodor, 1995) or specifically schizophrenia (Moritz, Mass & Junk, 1998)

! But:Other studies have questioned such correlations(Kline & Cooper, 1986; Weinstein & Graves, 2001)

! Different populations or different measures?



Right and left brain

! Preference of left hemisphere for interpretations that can easily be accommodated

! Preference of the right hemisphere for remote and novel associations

! Hemispheres competing for meaningful interpretation of incoming information




! Assumed links between right hemispheric processing and both creative and delusion-like thinking. Rationale: Preference of RH for remote and novel associations.

! Schizotypal thinkers show elevated RH but normal LH activity (Leonhard & Brugger, 1998)




Pop psychology tends to oversimplify and exaggerate interhemispheric differences



The pros and cons of symbolic processing

If schizophrenia is the price homo sapiens had to pay for language (Crow, 1998) ...

... is creativity its prize?



Introspective remarks

Albert Einstein Le hasard ne sourit qu’aux esprits

bien préparés.

Chance only favours the prepared mind

among chosen combinations the most fertile will often be those formed of

elements from domains which are far apart

combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in creative

thought

Henri Poincaré

Louis Pasteur


Definitions of creativity

“The forming of associative elementsinto new combinations

which either meet specified requirementsor are in some way useful”


1) idea generation

2) idea evaluation

(Mednick, 1958)




divergent thinking

convergent thinking (Guilford)

1) idea generation

2) idea evaluation


! Divergent thinking: associated with fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration

! Convergent thinking: capacity to arrive at unique and original solutions & tendency to consider problems in terms of multiple solutions

! Combined: ability to generate new ideas and to “reality test” them in order to determine if they will work




Are healthy individuals who score high on a schizotypy measure better at both divergent and convergent thinking?

Research question



! Measure for paranormal and delusion-like beliefs (Eckblad & Chapman, 1983)

! 30 yes/no-questions about people’s beliefs in telepathy, astrology, conspiracy theories, UFOs, etc: I think I could read other people’s minds if I wanted to.

! Correlates with other schizotypy measures (e.g. the Schedule for Affective Disorders (Spitzer &

Endicott)

Magical Ideation Scale



! Measure of “allusive thinking” (Armstrong &

McConaghy (1977)

! 20 items consisting of a stimulus word and five near-synonyms (all taken from a thesaurus)great: huge - world-wide - infinite - precious - intense

! Participants are asked to mark those words which they perceive as being “identical or nearly identical” in meaning to the first word

! German-language design based on nouns. Items with highest variance picked from a pre-test.

Word Halo Test



! “General measure of creativity” (Mednick (1958)

20 items consisting of 3 words magic - board - death

! Participants are asked to find a word which

can be related to every one of the stimulus items

! German-language design based on nouns. Selection of easy / medium / difficult items picked from a pre-test.

Remote Associates Test

black



Word Halo vs. Remote Associates Test

huge

great

world-wide

infiniteintense

precious

magic board death

black

divergent thinking convergent thinking



! 48 healthy right-handed (Chapman & Chapman, 1987)

persons, native speakers of (Swiss-)German! 25 females, 20-48 years (mean 27.4), edu: 12 to 24

years (mean: 17.4)

! 23 males, 20-49 years, mean age 30.4, edu: 12 to 24 years (mean: 16.7)

! Recruited via blackboard ads, predominantly in university buildings, no payment offered

Subjects



Magical Ideation Distribution

0

1

2

3

4

5

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Magical Ideation Distribution (n=48)

Introduction - Zurich Study - ConclusionsN

um

ber

of

par

tici

pan

ts

Median: 10.5


0

1

2

3

4

5

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

High Magical IdeationLow Magical Ideation

“skeptics” (n = 24) “believers” (n = 24)

Median: 10.5

Nu

mb

er o

f p

arti

cip

ants

Magical Ideation Distribution



40

45

50

55

Word Halo Remote Associates

51

45

41

54 Low Magical IdeationHigh Magical Ideation

(# of items selected) (% correct)

p = .0171

p = .0473

2-factor(MI & Sex)ANOVAs


Word Halo vs. Remote Associates Test

great: huge - world-wide - infinite - precious - intense

magic - board - death


RAT difficulty categories

8579

75 73 7367

56 56 54 5450

46 44 4235 33

25 25

6 6

easy!6 items"

mediu#!8 items"

di$cul%!6 items"

Base: Percentage of correct answers per item (n=48)

100

67

33

0

%



RAT performance

0

20

40

60

80

100

easy (6 items) medium (8 items) difficult (6 items)

15

46

72

28

54

79

Low Magical Ideation (n=24) High Magical Ideation (n=24)

p = .0053% c

orr

ect

n.s.

n.s.



8579

75 73 7367

56 56 54 5450

46 44 4235 33

25 25

6 6

RAT per item analysis

easy!6 items"

mediu#!8 items"

di$cul%!6 items"

Per item percentage of participants giving correct answers for low & high MI groups

For!16!items: low MI > high MIFor!1!item:! low MI = high MI

For!3!items: low MI < high MI

100

67

33

0

%

0

25

50

75

0 1 2 3

54

8

29

8

13

33

2529

%

Performance for difficult items

# of correct solutions

Mean !n="#$ low MI !n=%"$ high MI !n=%"$



RAT - men vs. women

0

20

40

60

80

easy (6 items) medium (8 items) difficult (6 items)

19

44

73

25

56

77

women men


% c

orr

ect


RAT - men vs. women

0

20

40

60

80

100

7

32

70

26

52

75

20

55

72

32

58

85

easy!6 items"

mediu#!8 items"

di$cul%!6 items"

&ome' &ome' &ome'me' me' me'


low MI ♀high MI ♀low MI ♂high MI ♂

% c

orr

ect


Conclusions

! Preferred thinking styles do modulate creative performance

! Persons scoring high on a schizotypy scale! tend to see more links between concepts and thus seem

better able to generate potential solutions to a problem

" more spreading activation in their semantic network?

! however seem less well able to find specific solutions if certain requirements must be met

" less well able to control this activation?



ConclusionsThe dissociation explains the Janusianface of magical ideation:

On one hand, pronounced divergent thinking allows one to “see” connections between loosely associated concepts, on the other hand, poor convergent thinking may prevent the integration of novel ideas into an established body of knowledge and thus foster the formation of idiosyncratic, delusion-like beliefs.



[email protected]

handout: http://www.kyriacou.ch/Downloads/DD303_2007.pdf


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