Autistic People Are Actually MORE Creative

BANGALORE: People with high levels of autistic traits are more likely to produce unusually creative ideas, finds a first-of-its-kind study.

Psychologists from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the University of Stirling examined the relationship between autistic-like traits and creativity.

While they found that people with high autistic traits produced fewer responses when generating alternative solutions to a problem - known as "divergent thinking" - the responses they did produce were more original and creative.

"People with high autistic traits could be said to have less quantity but greater quality of creative ideas," said study co-author Dr Martin Doherty from Norfolk-based University of East Anglia's school of psychology.

Autism is a mental condition, present from early childhood, characterised by great difficulty in communicating and forming relationships with others.

These people are typically considered to be more rigid in their thinking, so the fact that the ideas they have are more unusual or rare is surprising.

"This difference may have positive implications for creative problem solving," Dr Doherty added.

It is the first study to find a link between autistic traits and the creative thinking processes.

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