Autistics likelier to produce 'unusually creative' ideas

In a new discovery, researchers have revealed that the people suffering from autisms are likelier to produce unusually creative ideas.

Martin Doherty of UEA's School of Psychology said that people with autistic traits may approach creativity problems in a different way.

Doherty said that they were typically considered to be more rigid in their thinking, so the fact that the ideas they have are more unusual or rare was surprising, adding that this difference may have positive implications for creative problem solving.

Psychologists from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and University of Stirling examined the relationship between autistic-like traits and creativity. It is the first study to find a link between autistic traits and the creative thinking processes.

In the study, the researchers analysed data from 312 people who completed an anonymous online questionnaire to measure their autistic traits and took part in a series of creativity tests.

The higher the number of ideas produced, the lower the participant's level of autistic traits tended to be.

The researchers 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

The study is published in the journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.