The Effect of Creativity on Mental Flexibility and Focus

The Effect of Creativity on Mental Flexibility and Focus

Exactly how attention differs in relation to creativity remains an unresolved question. There are two main beliefs on the relationship between attention and creativity. One view indicates that creative individuals can easily switch attention between two types of stimuli and therefore have a greater ability for divergent thinking. The second view states that creative individuals have greater attentional persistence, and can therefore focus for extended periods of time. To sum up, there is either the capacity for greater mental flexibility or greater focus. These are two seemingly contradictory hypotheses about creativity.

Darya Zabelina and Mark Beeman believe that these two hypotheses need not be competing. Their study aimed to show that they coexist in that creativity may have two components, in which divergent thinking is one and attentional persistence is second. Although they set out to prove this, the results from their study did not support the coexistence of the two hypothesis. It was found that people with high creativity made significantly more errors on trials in which they had to switch the level of attention; their study found that attentional persistence was related to high creative achievement but not to divergent thinking. It can be concluded from the overall results that creative acts relate to increased focus. 

In her article, “Creativity Linked With Deficit in Mental Flexibility”, Maia Szalavitz speaks of a study in which the scientists did not originally take the position of the coexistence of the two hypothesis. In fact, these scientists took the stance that creativity is due to focus, not mental flexibility. Throughout the experiment, participants were asked to shift their attention from a global level of processing to a local one by focusing on different aspects of patterns. It was consistently found in the results that creative individuals made more than twice as many errors the less creative. The study makes clear that creative achievement is positively associated with the ability to focus, but this comes with some trade-offs in mental flexibility, similar to the conclusion reached in the Zabelina and Beeman study.

Research like the two experiments discussed above may make inroads in explaining the behavior and creativity of those diagnosed with autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Autistic people tend to focus obsessively and can often be highly creative. It may also help explain the link between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and creative success. There are two parts to the disorder of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and one is that they can become very focused on something of interest, similar to autistic people. In fact, many individuals diagnosed with autism, around 30-50%, also have ADHD.

The combination of the two hypothesis above may be the key to creative success, in which an individual has the ability to range their thoughts widely between stimuli and to focus when a good idea occurs.

References:

Zabelina, Darya L.,Beeman, Mark,. (2013). Short-term attentional perseveration                associated with real-life creative achievement. Front.Psychol.Frontiers in                Psychology, 4

Szalavitz, M. (2013, June 07). Creativity Linked With Deficit in Mental Flexibility.

Time Magazine. Retrieved from

http://healthland.time.com/2013/06/07/creativity-linked-with-deficit-                       in-mental-flexibility/