Latent Inhibition

hmm interesting, was looking through some stuff on the net and came across this latent inhibition dealy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_inhibition

Not entirely sure on the whole intelligence vs psychosis thing, but I do wonder if anyone else here feels they have low latent inhibition. I put it down to sensory overload in my aspergers diagnosis but it doesn't explain how hypersensitive I am in perceiving peoples facial expressions (since aspies as a rule can't gauge other peoples emotional expressiveness at all or badly) and well, just their behaviour in general, which can get somewhat overwhelming in crowds... which is a reason I think I dissociate somewhat when having to deal with them.

I also wonder if it's to account for my limited style of social interaction, in that a superficial and limited style of interaction is safer - there are fewer possibilities, less outcomes to deal with. I think if I ever tried relating to someone on more than the superficial I would probably just become absolutely swamped.

to add: as I write this post, I'm reminded of a time I was on magic mushrooms in the city. I didn't actually feel all that changed in myself, just that the low latent inhibition was even more intense.

Its an interesting subject. But in my case i share "Extreme similarities" between me and my blood relatives. I was separated from them at birth, which gives the results much more merit. I have a family history of mental illness. Mother, Aunt. uncles. But it isn't the negative sides of there disorders im really interested in. My mother who was the most mentally handicapped of her siblings did things that to my knowledge have not been documented in any text. Even aunts and uncles say the same thing. It seems to me. With no "formal Education" That Schizophrenia is beyond genius on the bell curve. Basically what im saying is that Schizophrenia is a Low LLI with a lack of intelligence. Like you have posted.

My uncle and my mother have the same negative symptoms.

but my mother cant read,drive,no sense of direction(Extreamly low LLI ...low intelligence


My uncle is a computer programmer who used to work for intel or something. Low LLI+ high intelligence


My Mother cant handle her LLI which causes her Positive symptoms

My uncle, Can


It seems to me that most mental disorders(the ones that are not "NURTURE PRODUCED") are on a bell curve. With the more severe mental disorders like Schizophrenia on the extreme end. autism is less extreme. And a persons intelligence(or ability to ascertain left from right) will determine the severity of there behavior.



But even people with the more major disabilities also have amazing abilities in sensory perception. i think the medical community over looks most of them because there not in the DSM 5.

And here it is.
http://www.jeffwu.net/?p=72

The authors hypothesize that latent inhibition may be positive when combined with high intelligence and good working memory - the capacity to think about many things at once - but negative otherwise. Peterson states: “If you are open to new information, new ideas, you better be able to intelligently and carefully edit and choose. If you have 50 ideas, only two or three are likely to be good. You have to be able to discriminate or you’ll get swamped.”

“Scientists have wondered for a long time why madness and creativity seem linked,” says Carson. “It appears likely that low levels of latent inhibition and exceptional flexibility in thought might predispose to mental illness under some conditions and to creative accomplishment under others.”

A less able mind has a greater need to be able to filter out and ignore stimuli. A less intelligent person with a low level of latent inhibition for filtering out familiar stimuli may well sink into mental illness as a result. But a smarter mind can handle the effects of taking note of a larger number of stimuli and even find interesting and useful patterns by continually processing a larger quantity of familiar information.

The central idea underlying our research program is therefore that individuals characterized by increased plasticity (extraversion and openness)retain higher post-exposure access to the range of complex possibilities laying dormant in so-called ‘‘familiar ’’environments.This heightened access is the subjective concomitant of decreased latent inhibition,which allows the plastic person increased incentive-reward-tagged appreciation for hidden or latent information (Peterson,1999). Such decreases in LI may have pathological consequences,as in the case of schizophrenia or its associated conditions (perhaps in individuals whose higher-order cognitive processes are also impaired,and who thus become involuntarily ‘‘flooded ’’by an excess of a ffectively tagged infor- mation),or may constitute a precondition for creative thinking (in individuals who have the cognitive resources to ‘‘edit ’’or otherwise constrain (Stokes,2001)their broader range of mean- ingful experience).

Such decreases in LI may have pathological consequences,as in the case of schizophrenia or its associated conditions (perhaps in individuals whose higher-order cognitive processes are also impaired,and who thus become involuntarily ‘‘flooded ’’by an excess of a ffectively tagged infor- mation),or may constitute a precondition for creative thinking (in individuals who have the cognitive resources to ‘‘edit ’’or otherwise constrain (Stokes,2001)their broader range of mean- ingful experience).

Well i guess it is documented. But learning this way is much more rewarding.

Note from the text of the full paper that stress causes the release of the hormone corticosterone which lowers latent inhibition. In a nutshell, when an organism runs into problems that cause stress the resulting release of stress hormones causes the mind to shift into a state where it will examine factors in the environment that it normally ignores. This allows the organism to look for solutions to the stress-causing problem that would be ignored in normal and less stressed circumstances.

So perhaps we could hypothesize something like this:under stressful conditions,or in person-ality configurations characterized by increased novelty-sensitivity,approach behavior,and DA activity, decreased LI is associated with increased permeability and flexibility of functional cog- nitive and perceptual category [see Barsalou (1983)for a discussion of such categories ].Imagine a situation where current plans are not producing desired outcomes —a situation where current categories of perception and cognition are in error, from the pragmatic perspective. Something anomalous or novel emerges as a consequence (Peterson,1999), and drives exploratory behavior.

bouts of mania

Stake Feb 15th, 2006 at 4:45 pm

I myself have “LLI” although rather mildly I think, it has mainly made me extremely perceptive to such things as miniscule gestures in peoples voices and body language. My ability to solve problems are also very clear and creative.

Although I can imagine what it must be like to have it drive you mad, every now and again a few days or so a year I start perceiving, everything. It all becomes crystal clear, every sound, every visual stimuliae everything, it normally last between a few hours and a day or so. It’s terrifying, in a crowd you perceive every voice and every step, it matches up visually to every person making that noise, and it physically hurts to take in that much information, to in class hear every pencil is agony, ones mind is functioning in a way it simply wasn’t designed for. If the people who go mad have it like that all the time I certainly don’t blame them.

Creativity and madness

Creativity and madness

How can people lower their inhibition quotient and increase creativity on their own? There's really no good answer to that question yet. "We may have identified one of the biological bases of creativity," Carson says, "but it is only one among many. Creativity also is associated with a variety of personality traits, social and family factors, and direct training."

There also remain fundamental biological riddles to solve. Cats, rats, mice, pigeons, and other animals show latent inhibition. When they discover something is useless for helping them to survive, ignoring it helps them survive. Then there's that mysterious connection between psychosis and creativity to probe. "Highly creative people in our studies," Carson notes, "showed the same latent inhibition patterns found in other studies of schizophrenics.

"Both madness and creativity must involve many different genes," Carson points out. "It's not impossible that the two share some of these genes. It's my hope that future research into this and other areas will help us progress toward silencing the demons of mental disorders that often coexist with the muses of creativity."

Until then, the situation is cogently expressed by this old joke:

A man is driving past a mental hospital when one of the wheels falls off his car. He stops and recovers the wheel but can't find the lug nuts to secure it back in place. Just then he notices a man sitting on the curb carefully removing small pebbles from the grass and piling them neatly on the sidewalk.

"What am I going to do?" the man asks aloud. The fellow piling the pebbles looks up, and says, "Take one of the lug nuts from each of the other wheels and use them to put the wheel back on."

The driver is amazed. "Wow!" he exclaims. "What a brilliant idea. What are you doing in a place like this?" he asks, nodding toward the mental institution.

"Well," the man answers, "I'm crazy, not stupid."
"That's exactly what our research is about," Carson comments. "It shows that, to be creative, you can be bright and crazy, but not stupid."

Intelligence (the mean IQs of the three subject pools fell between 120 and 130), when married to low latent inhibition, may potentiate original thought. These two factors combined to explain one-fifth to one-quarter of the variance in creativity among the three groups of students. "Intelligence allows you to manipulate the additional stimuli in novel ways without being overwhelmed by them," Carson explains. "IQ may act as a protective factor. That does not mean it will prevent psychosis. "If a cause of psychosis is a failure of filtering, those who suffer from it may have difficulty determining if stimuli are internally or externally generated," Carson says, noting that the average age of onset for schizophrenia is 16 for males and 20 for females, a time when adolescents are defining their boundaries. "A memory or a mental image may appear to be coming from the outside; consequently, psychotics attach emotional significance to random stimuli. They develop an associational network that is not comprehensible to anyone else—their network is both broader and shallower than that of the general population."This is also true for creative persons," Carson continues. "Imagination comes from image, an internally generated image. What you do with that image has a lot to do with whatever else is in your mind. Preparation is a part of creativity. If you're a real artist, you know your field; when ideas start coming, you know when there is an aesthetic fit. Creators can communicate their associations with other people in a form that is original, useful, or that resonates with a certain portion of the population."

However, while intelligence and preparation may be necessary, they may not be enough to produce creativity. "Maybe it's working memory capacity that is the protective aspect," Carson says. "How many things can you hold in your mind and process and manipulate?" In a preliminary, unpublished study, she says, "The combination of low latent inhibition and high working memory also predicted creative achievement."

http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/050445.html

I was right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Yaw


Music please
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPyWLkifO9Q
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http://www.dynamicbalancingtaichi.co.uk ... bition.htm


http://www.dynamicbalancingtaichi.co.uk ... ition2.htm

heheeh i see you like the topic mike jones.

Anyways, no one else gets some degree of sensory overload? yesterday I was out most of the day and felt kind of ill when I was back home, felt like my innards had been churned around for a while.