New study: autism causes a different kind of creativity

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http://link.springer.com/article/10.100 ... 015-2518-2

Unfortunately, this study is behind a paywall, but I have access to the full-text through my university. PM me if you want the pdf.

Basically, a lot of studies assess creativity by asking someone to generate as many different responses to a prompt as they can (eg "how many different uses can you think of for this object?" or "how many different pictures can you make from this squiggly line?") They score people on both number of responses and how unusual those responses are. In most studies, those two scores are strongly correlated.

This study found that among people with autistic traits, those two measures are not strongly correlated. Autistic people tend to generate fewer different responses, but the responses they generate tend to be more unusual. This means that an autistic person could easily end up creating something really unique and creative, without being able to generate a lot of different possibilities very easily.

Interesting. Some snippets:

"Autism is characterised by a triad of impairments in the domains of social behaviour, communication, and imagination (Wing 1981). The deficit in imagination is manifested as restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests, or activities (DSM–5; American Psychiatric Association 2013). Impaired imagination being a core feature of autism, it seems paradoxical that there are high profile cases of people with autism who exhibit creative flair in their fields of special interest (Fitzgerald 2004). These savant abilities occur far more frequently among people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) than other developmental disabilities (Treffert 2009). Therefore it has been posited that autism cannot be explained by a deficit-only model but requires that we also explain the islets of preserved or even superior ability (Happé 1999)."

"Where might the positive link between autism and creativity lie if not in fluency of divergent thinking? There is some indication that ASD groups have strengths in the generation of highly original responses. Kasirer and Mashal (2014) found the ASD participants were superior to controls in the generation of novel metaphors. This is a particularly intriguing finding in light of the volume of evidence suggesting people with high functioning ASD are impaired in the comprehension of metaphors, jokes and other non-literal language (e.g. Rundblad and Annaz 2010, Gold et al. 2010). Liu et al. (2011) found that participants with Asperger syndrome were superior in the elaborateness and originality of their responses on creativity tests. Thus it may be that although there is an overall decrease in production, what is obtained may be qualitatively superior."

I believe that autistic people are fixating, dwelling, and not avoiding errors.

NT people are drifting, from one thing to the next.

If you never interrupted the AS subjects, they would probably forget to eat, sleep, change their clothes, use the restroom, or come out of the weather.

As an inventor, who is on the spectrum, I am supposed to tell you that this is sarcasm, but no.

I think I've taken surveys online that use the "How many uses can you think of for a brick?" question (or similar) as a supposed measure of creativity. That strikes me as a completely bizarre and backward way to assess real creativity because it's divorced from any actual problem. Actual creativity (except perhaps in pure art or fiction) starts with a problem and then asks how many ways you can find to solve it. Or in other cases it starts by attacking the question: Why have you chosen that question? How many other questions could you have asked? If I ask a different question won't I get a completely different answer?

I think the psychologists studying creativity aren't very creative.

I've been a very creative person since the earliest age I can remember, and I've recently done that brick test -- I think I scored reasonably well but yet I found it didn't "connect" with my type of creativity. I felt that it wasn't a good way to measure how creative I am or of what type. It bored me and didn't feel like the same kind of process by which I actually "create" when I'm making art, music, written work or any other form of artistic/original endeavor.

I have been pretty creative, in the past, writing and in the visiual arts but I always require a external impetus, to act as a seed for my own creativity. I can easily and accurate copy a visual item or write a story or poem, I can elaborate on the ideas in unusual ways and produce very individual and unique pieces provided that the initial spark comes from elsewhere, without it I'd simply spend hours looking at sheet of blank paper.

The validity of the second half of this statement is incredibly obvious to anyone who is either on the spectrum or has a close relationship with someone on it. As for the first half, I'm not sure I agree. Processing speed could be a factor, as could the stress and anxiety produced by taking a test and simultaneously managing a social interaction with the examiner. Remove these issues, and the number of responses might be comparable.

"How many uses can you think of for a brick?"

Here's how an NT would differ from an Aspie in handling this question
(well, at least in my view):

NT --- would list maybe 100 different ways you can use a brick

Aspie --- would paint 100 original landscape and nature scenes on 100 bricks, the bricks being all the same while each painting was different (but why stop at 100?)

Yes to this!

Launch it through a tv and then create a channel dedicated to plucking the shards out of it, if any even pierced its sultry tangy stubborn skin, how thick is a brick's skin? I would create a drama limited to just that liberated shattered screen that concerns the life story of this brick bouquet, what solid and sharp edged secrets can be coaxed to the powdery surface? Who knows, tune in and find out, join the raucous roughly conceived revolution, fragment your faithful idiot box with a stunning rectangular swipe immediately! Bricks are the blocks of uncreation!