Kafka, Proust, Darwin, Chekhov, Goethe… It turns out that in order to create, they needed absolute silence. Why – scientists decided to find out.
Marcel Proust wore earplugs and upholstered the walls with soundproofing material – he was so distracted by extraneous sounds. Franz Kafka, one of the most important writers of the XNUMXth century, once said: “When I write, I need solitude – not like a hermit, but like a dead man.” Charles Darwin, Anton Chekhov and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe also complained more than once about how much noise distracts them while they work.
A new study from Northwestern University (USA) will help explain why it is difficult for geniuses to filter out the sensory information around them during creative work. First, the authors of the study found evidence that creative genius may be associated with a reduced ability to filter out extraneous cues. “Leaky” filtering occurs at an early stage of information processing by the brain, this is an involuntary process, and perhaps this is what helps a person think through ideas, ”explains the main author of the study, Daria Zabelina.
The researchers studied so-called sensory filtering, which occurs about 50 milliseconds after the perception of a stimulus by the senses, and its relationship with two indicators of creativity – divergent thinking and real creative achievements.
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About 100 participants in the study filled out a questionnaire describing their creative achievements, and also passed a test for divergent (branched) thinking, which is usually used to assess creativity in the laboratory. In this test, it is required to come up with the maximum number of solutions to various unlikely scenarios in a limited time. The assessment of divergent thinking depends on the number and originality of answers.
A measure of divergent thinking was associated with academic achievement and the ability to selectively filter out extraneous sensory information. On the contrary, real creative achievements were associated with a “leaky filter” – a reduced ability to filter extraneous stimuli. Obviously, different “filters” are better suited for different aspects of creativity.
“Such increased sensitivity, if directed in the right direction, can enrich a person’s life, filling it with new nuances and subtleties,” says Zabelina. However, many of the great creators at one time complained about how they were distracted by extraneous stimuli. Researchers have not yet been able to find out whether the “leaky filter” is a permanent personality trait, or the degree of filtering of extraneous stimuli can be changed for a specific task.
D. Zabelina et al. «Creativity and sensory gating indexed by the P50: Selective versus leaky sensory gating in divergent thinkers and creative achievers». Neuropsychologia, 2015.