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Low Latent Inhibition

For years, various people have been interested in a link between "madness" and creativity. Some artists have also had mental health problems; at least, enough of them to fuel further interest in the connection.

Neurobiologists have now conducted some research (among Harvard undergraduates) that indicates the importance of Low Latent Inhibition in creative minds.

So what is Low Latent Inhibition?

Well, Latent Inhibition is the facility that allows us to filter out superfluous incoming data to the brain. It ensures that we register what’s around us on a “need to know” sort of basis, thus saving our brains and ourselves from mental overload. Most people, when entering a room for the first time (let's say when visiting someone) will make one of the seats figural in their mind. Having somewhere to sit is their main objective in the moment. Once seated, they may look at their host, begin a conversation, look around the room. If invited to a drink, they may see what they prefer from the choices they are given. This, apparently, is a vital part of our wiring necessary to ensure survival. It would not be useful, when being attacked by a raging tiger, to be equally interested in the sunlight dancing in the droplets of saliva that are sliding slowly down its teeth. And, additionally, for that to be only one of ten pieces of data that one was simultaneously noticing. The chances of survival, in such circumstances, could be perceived as being rather slim.

However this is precisely the process in which the person with Low Latent Inhibition is permanently engaging. They are not filtering anything out. When they enter a room for the first time, they will be as alert to the tiny flecks on the pattern on the carpet as the slight swallowing in the throat that came with the offer of tea. As they made an initial, and cursory, scan of the room they will have taken in its every aspect and each perception will, to them, have equal and simultaneous emphasis. Alongside each of these simultaneous perceptions of physical phenomena, will be memories, associations, daydreams and thoughts. Each moment is an island within a constant stream of information.

So, what’s the connection with madness and creativity?

There are some who cannot cope with the constant stream, some who can cope with it extremely well, and some who have learned to surf upon it in order to create – art, novels, mathematical formulae, music, poetry. Here’s how mathematician Henri Polincaré described a creative breakthrough: “Ideas rose in crowds; I felt them collide until pairs interlocked, so to speak, making a stable combination.” (Poetic, yes……?)

There are many people who suffer from the same phenomena through illnesses such as schizophrenia and delusional pychoses. The incoming data is too much for them to deal with and, as they cannot filter it out, they need to take advantage of medication to do the filtering for them. The research indicates that, if Low Latent Inhibition is accompanied by a certain kind of intelligence, good working memory and well-developed ego-strength, then the individual will succeed creatively where (without these qualities) they would have collapsed under the impact of the constant stimulation and become mentally unwell. (However, although IQ may act as a protective factor, that does not mean it will prevent psychosis.)

As someone with an interest in Gestalt theory, I wonder about how this could affect our understanding of figure-formation in those with low latent inhibition. After all, there is not a solitary figure emerging from the field. The theory would have to take this into account in order not to dismiss their multiple figures as a deflection from the pain of more concentrated contact, for example. And I'd be wary of assuming that the contact isn’t concentrated just because they are simultaneously aware of different threads in the moment. I wonder whether our concept of figure-formation could change a little in order to make room for such clients.

We currently have a single, clear, bright figure emerging from the field as a sign of healthy contact. Perhaps the single figure could, in some cases, be multi-composited. Just in the same way that a section of netting or tapestry is made up of many threads. The threads would change and shift in relation to the additional data they tilted towards in the stream of data (and would be, in turn, formed and reformed by the field, like any other emerging figure).

There’s some interesting writing about Low Latent Inhibition – I’ll include some links here:

Ideas Rain In A short, snappy, simple article from the Harvard magazine.

Why Mad Scientists are Mad:What's Behind the Creative Mind? A detailed and very well written article in a non-academic style. An enjoyable and informative read.

For more academic writing on this please go to Research on L.L.I.

Sarah Fallon 2006