Laterality and creativity concomitants of attention problems

Abstract

Geschwind (1984) predicted that a high degree of talent would be found in those exceptional individuals who are learning disordered and who exhibited left handedness and allergies. As a test of this hypothesis, 16 attention‐disordered/hyperactive, high‐IQ children were matched with a comparison group for age, sex, and verbal reasoning. The variables measured were the ability to perceive coherence tacitly, focal and peripheral recall, incidental memory, problem‐solving style, creativity, and stimulation‐seeking behavior. In comparison with children who could focus attention easily, those with attention problems showed more mixed laterality and allergies, gathered and used more diverse, nonverbal, and poorly focused information, and showed higher figural creativity. It was concluded the attention‐disordered children attend to different aspects of their environments than normal children and that this divergent information is available for use when exhibiting novelty in nonverbal thinking.