I’ve just watched episode 9 of the new tv series called ‘Prison Break’. Near the end of this episode we find out that the main character suffers from a condition known as ‘Low latent Inhibition’. I wanted to see if such an interesting condition actually existed so I googled it and here is what I found:
Low Latent Inhibition Plus High Intelligence Leads To High Creativity?
Jordan Peterson of the University of Toronto and colleages at Harvard University have found that decreased latent inhibition of environmental stimuli appears to correlate with greater creativity among people with high IQ.
The study in the September issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology says the brains of creative people appear to be more open to incoming stimuli from the surrounding environment. Other people’s brains might shut out this same information through a process called “latent inhibition” – defined as an animal’s unconscious capacity to ignore stimuli that experience has shown are irrelevant to its needs. Through psychological testing, the researchers showed that creative individuals are much more likely to have low levels of latent inhibition.
“This means that creative individuals remain in contact with the extra information constantly streaming in from the environment,” says co-author and U of T psychology professor Jordan Peterson. “The normal person classifies an object, and then forgets about it, even though that object is much more complex and interesting than he or she thinks. The creative person, by contrast, is always open to new possibilities.”
Previously, scientists have associated failure to screen out stimuli with psychosis. However, Peterson and his co-researchers – lead author and psychology lecturer Shelley Carson of Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Harvard PhD candidate Daniel Higgins – hypothesized that it might also contribute to original thinking, especially when combined with high IQ. They administered tests of latent inhibition to Harvard undergraduates. Those classified as eminent creative achievers – participants under age 21 who reported unusually high scores in a single area of creative achievement – were seven times more likely to have low latent inhibition scores.
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 effectively tagged information),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 meaningful experience)
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 personality configurations characterized by increased novelty-sensitivity, approach behavior, and DA activity, decreased LI is associated with increased permeability and flexibility of functional cognitive 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. Stress or trait-dependent decreased LI, under such circumstances, could produce increased signal (as well as noise), with regards to the erroneous pattern of behavior and the anomaly that it produced. This might o?er the organism, currently enmeshed in the consequences of mistaken presuppositions, the possibility of gathering new information, where nothing but categorical certainty once existed. Decreased LI might therefore be regarded as advantageous, in that it allows for the perception of more unlikely, radical and numerous options for reconsideration, but disadvantageous in that the stressed or approach-oriented person risks ‘‘drowning in possibility,’’ to use Kierkegaard ’s phrase.
One can easily see how this response could have been selected for evolutionarily. At the same time, one can also see how chronic stress could lead a person to fall into a state of confusion as a sustained large flood of stimuli could overwhelm the brain by giving it too much to think about and make a person unable to clearly see solutions that will relieve the feeling of stress.
How can someone find out if they have LLI? I think there might be a tiny possibility that i have it, because i always have trouble shutting things out, and because of that i have trouble sleeping. I also have trouble focusing on people when they talk to me and I notice things all the time (which means I'm always being distracted). I do go jogging but the only way I can mentally endure it is to solve problems in my head, and things like that. My IQ is relatively high so I'm not sure if I'm "proccessing" this information instead of being overwhelmed by it. In other words If I do have LLI, I'm not sure if I can tell because of my IQ. I can't tell how everyone else perceives the world.
It's odd to me how many people claim they have LLI. A lot of people seem to be relating it to disorders such as ADD and Autism, and all sorts of other things. What many people seem to be failing to grasp, is that it is not a disorder. LLI is a character trait, much like being very dexterous, or such. LLI you could equate to being very observant.
Heightened hearing is another trait as well, this in example, could cause negative effects like sensitivity to chaotic vocal situations. LLI is just the same. Some people don't have the tools, either latent or otherwise, to deal with the information they receive, whether it's an over stimulation or not. I personally doubt that IQ is the only factor, considering that the IQ test is only culturally accurate, and not a very viable way of measuring people of different experiences, social environments or ethnicity.
To quote the wikipedia: "Each IQ test, however, is designed and valid only for a certain IQ range. Because so few people score in the extreme ranges, IQ tests usually cannot accurately measure very low and very high IQs."
The french wikipedia page about LLI says that there is around 35% of the world population having Inhibition Troubles, of any kind, so no wonder if so many people (15…?) seems to recognize LLI…Maybe it’s not the case for everyone here, but it is highly probable.
Moreover, it can be considered as a disorder since the brain is not made to work under this kind of load. Still from the french article (I think you can find the same in the english one), LLI can cause headaches and hypotension. So, as it can have bad consequences, I think it can be a disorder…
LLI does not sound to be about poor attention span or being easily distracted or having rambling thoughts. It sounds to be about being utterly in the here and now. Totally present, not caught up in memories, anxieties and thinking.
All these people who talk about racing thoughts sound confused.
Where does thought come from? Memory.
Thoughts can only be from the past because you cannot comment on the emergent moment whilst simultaneously experiencing it.
LLI roots you in the moment. Consequently your conscious mind is silent.
I read a bit deeper into this tai chi master/zen master’s site and he paints a very different picture of LLI than most people seem to do on this site.
Instead of being a case of constant distraction and problems with stress and so forth, he sees it as being “meditation”. He says that it is about being more aware of the immensity of the moment. Involuntarily aware.
http://www.dynamicbalancingtaichi.co.uk/Meditation.htm
http://www.dynamicbalancingtaichi.co.uk/Truth.htm
Some people have quoted statistics but what can stats mean? They are just guesses and as such, highly speculative.
LLI is not ADD or aspergers syndrome.
Most of the people who have updated this page just sound to be a bit hyperactive. They lack the profundity a person might associated with LLI.
I have read the website and blog of a man with LLI and he just keeps on knocking me over with his simple yet stunning insights.
http://www.dynamicbalancingtaichi.co.uk/Perception.htm
Having read Jeff Wu’s LLI page I am yet to read anything from anyine here that remotely echoes this.
I agree with the skeptics around. Those people who claimed to have LLI may not have LLIs. I mean, as I go down the webpage, those people who claimed to have LLIs are the ones who have alot of typo errors. Doesnt these errors bothers them if they claimed have it? Especially since LLI people are the ones who attention to the most minute details. It's already one finger pointing that people who claimed to have LLIs are just claim jumpers. Receiving more information that other people doesnt means it's all LLIs. Its a matter of being more observant, or maybe or acute hearing or simple more sensitive in nature. Does being more sensitive means its a sign of LLIs. What's the difference between hyper-sensitive or attention to details to LLIs? I think more often than not, some of these people here are just have a hyper active mind. they are curious, their thoughts ran very quickly link one point to another. It's not LLIs. Please get the facts right. There's alot of hype from those posters who claimed to have it. I suspect some of them just want to idolise the 'Michael' character on what seems to be the hottest show in town and claim to have what he has. hell why not? Internet is a great way to remain anynomus anyway. Throw in that you are the Chosen One born from planet Krypton as well! No doubt some of them are real, (or at least from the face of it). I'm just curious to meet these REAL LLI people. For those who really tries to shut down information overload, I suggest meditation. It would do something about that and improves concentration level.
PS – I agree this Prison Break is really good, that I dont normally watch TV also hook onto it.
LLI comes after a couple of years of trying to find alternative solutions to any basic everyday issue. if u have LLI it can be of many varitions. feel likewhatever u do about any general issue isnt enough. you keep looking for new ways to tackle issues.feel oppressed, pretty sure i got it.
i really love thiss article. wht brought me up to this is that i have been watching prison break on fox which is the best tv show ever. and a star named sara tancreddi heard michael scofield was sufferibg from low latent inhibition. i've always wonder what it is. until i found this aritcle. the thing i am still wondering is how can u get low latent inbition. ??????????????
so according to this article it says if you fail to accomplish you result in mental illness! wow!
yeah joseph is right prison break is a great tv show. i learn things from it. i am still wondering that i've known some people with a hiigh iq, but they don't result in low latent inhibition. does this happen to people naturally? well thanks for this lovely article. i learned a lot from this article!!!!!!!!!!!
I have it, too. I am really happy to be smart. Stick the gun in your mouth if you can’t deal with it. Stop bitching. Channel it if you can. If not, kill yourself. Really. Or contribute. Piss or get off the pot.
Self-diagnosis is a fool's endeavour. If you have LLI why would you waste your time trying to convince other people that you have it? Half of the people claiming to have it make countless typos and fail to notice them. Not exactly a persuasive demonstration of LLI.
I read a LLI webpage written 6 years ago (mentioned on Brian's post – see above). Given that it is not a reaction to Prison Break, I found it more convincing than the people posting on this page.
it really amazing reading stories about the people with LLI…im really interested in it. if i have time i would probably research on it.
prison break is not just a show…its like having a 'discovery channel' in it! great show and cant wait to read more stories and studies about LLI.
lol philippines
;Hey every body, WOW!! Who knew that today at the age of 53, I’d finally find out about myself and my life!
Watched some T.V.show that brush the subject of LLI!!
Ran to my computer and their I was, full blow, 100% per fricken cent,…me, myself and I!
And as many of you have said, with all it’s pros and cons!
Genius,..was never a thought…like—–get outta town!!!
Pro’s,…..well by the age of 35 I had three different extremely creative international careers under my belt,…non of which I studied for, or knew anything about!
I also have a publishing contract in London for music, writing the lyrics, music, melodies,..played all the instruments and machines as well as produced the material!
Oh ya, and did the vocals and backing vocals! I know nothing about music,..nor have ever taken a lesson!
I’m an international fashion photographer,. I know nothing about photography , or have ever taken a lesson! I only shoot in natural light..sooo much there!
I’m on my second book,…of a cool fantasy trilogy…I know nothing about writing! Also have a book of poems puplished!
It goes on seemingly,… without effort! Fer real………..and not just do all that….I kick ass!..big time! Thus going international,. I had to! I actually went international strightaway,..cause I simply saw past the local level in everything!!!!
18 different countries later ,…I know live off the coast of Africa!
Con’s
I never had any friends,….nobody interested me,..or kept my interest for long!
I was always seeing life on another level than anybody else,…and blamed myself!
I was diagnosed with S.A.D…a social anxiety disorder just two years ago!
And after reading this think it was LLI!
Seeing the world three levels notch up,….has always been way over whelming,. but if ya don’t know anything else,..well! Whats the problem? just cope!
Well I’m 53 and it’s really crippled my life in the last five years! Its to much to face out side,..to drive,…to block out,…to constantly be trying to pull yourself towards yourself to maintain control, while this tornado swirls around you!
Nobody understands and you don’t even go there!
Even though I look back at what I’ve done,……I was never as impressed with myself as I should have been! Cause I never studied or worked hard in the least, for any of it I guess,.it was just there,..!
Soooo what can I say,….had an incredible life,..probably all the better for not understanding what was going on!
Get out of this what you will younglings,…..the creative path is wonderfull,..but it was to easy,…what’s left after doing it alllll, at the top level???
Left kind of in a vacuum,…of largely meaningless detail!
I do agree with one thing,..i have smoked grass alllll my life,..everyday!! because it slowed everythings down,.to a copeable sane level,..
Thank god for that,…seriously!! I just numb myself as much as possible,…it’s all to,…much!
Go well my friends…peace!
Craig.
i have had lli since i can remember and i have an IQ of 151 and its been hard because i had, had a few break downs because of the amount of info i can process in such a short time, i'v always been able to look at an object and build it, been able to minipulate other people to do as i wish, and been alot smarter than that micheal scofield on the prison break program! its nice to see so many people involved in trying to find out exactly what is wrong with them, but guess what???? there is NOTHING wrong with you at all. its a gift…….. USE it! or contact me on 07784611557 because i'd love to help the people who think they have somthing wrong! ( i'v been studying phycology for the past 3yrs so i know if there is anything else i can help you with! thanks. kind reguards.. jay
Jay, your spelling mistakes make me loathe to believe that you have LLI.
As does your IQ claim. LLI is not measurable by an IQ test. How could it be? LLI is about creativity and awareness, not puzzles.
Mensa offer culturally specific IQ tests, with a mathematical bias. Other IQ test are equivalently unreliable. What do they prove? That you think within the box.
Surely, for an LLI person, there is no box?
Jeff,
This article is very interesting. It has given me so much information that I needed to know on LLI. I have my boyfriend with this condition, however he refuses to go into details with me about it. That is why I went on my own way to do my research on it. I have a couple of questions for those who do have LLI so I can better understand my boyfriend. He sometimes gets too quiet and wants to be alone is this normal? He would disappear on me just so he can be alone. He will be in his room either reading or just thinking. When he works he wants to get everything done I always thought he was being a kiss ass to his boss but he says it has to get done. He will be bother sometimes with noise because he over hears them is this normal? I want to understand so I don't interpret things wrong. He is very creative and smart but now I see why it's not just because he is a nerd. He was just open minded into learning more than me I guess… Give me an advice as to how I should take certain things from him please thanks.
He sounds more obsessive compulsive than anything else. If he had LLI you'd be writing about how creative and sparky he was. He wouldn't be a loner, he'd be sharing his countless insights with you.
Mike, Thanks for the response and I kind of agree with you too. He does not like to comment on any of this subject with me. He only said "I have LLI" to me that is like "WHAT?". I have been trying to be understanding with his actions but now he is very depressed and wants to be a loner. He was not like that at all being a mechanical engineer and now not doing what he loves is bringing him down completely. So I guess it's just stress and depression that is making him act the way he is. Thanks again,
Did he read this article? If not, he should, even the comments, which are, for a part of them, very interesting. He may have the same shock that I had one year ago.
Maybe he could find a good motivation in creative activities, whatever it is. It could be artistic creation or handworking or anything in what he could express and create as he wants.
Did you see any change in his behavior? I'm not sure to understand you well whan you say "He was not like that at all"…
Alex,
When I met my boyfriend last year he was quiet, serious, but very sweet. We will always go everywhere and have lots of fun. Then he went away overseas to work for a couple of months. Now that he is back he is just strange. He is very isolated and wants nothing with anybody. He has not read any articles on LLI to my knowledge cause he said he hasn't. However he was shocked I did my own reasearch. So I guess his actions of being very stress and depress has not only shocked his nerves but everything. But thanks for your comments I hope he overcomes this bad moment of shockness. According to him he is feeling worst than he ever did in his life since he has been told he has LLI.
Alex you said you went thru this shock last year tell me about it what happened, how did you feel, My boyfriend joined a kickboxing class and is writting a book so he is distracting himself I guess that is a positive sign right?
As many of other people here, I read this article while searching informations about LLI, just after the release of Prison Break. The particular thing is that I wrote how i felt (and still feel) about the world, the people i know… in a sort of diary, a few days before finding out about LLI. When I first read the article, I recognized some of the sign of this condition in my behavior. When I read the comments, I also recognized myself in some of the description made by people claiming to have LLI. Reading what I just wrote a few days ago in the comments was the shock.
After that, I felt different for a few days. I just kept wondering what would happen, what would be the consequences. The fact is : knowing that you have LLI makes no difference. It just puts a reason on why you feel different, but has no consequences on your behavior. Finding out the truth about that is a shock, but after a time, I just overwent the knowledge of LLI, and I now think about it as "that's me". I don't want to change anything, it has its drawbacks, but there is no reason to think about it as a disease.
I think that is the key, for your boyfriend. If he hasn't read any article about it, he may think its a psycholigical problem, or disease. You made the research, and you say it had shocked him, maybe because he thinks it's a shame, or something disgraceful. He has to do the research to understand what it is, and what it is not. He has to understand it to accept it.
And about the new activities of your boyfriend: yes, that's a positive sign!
Sorry if I made a few mistakes. I'm not english, so I may have mispelt some words.
Alex,
You are completely right my boyfriend has to learn how to accept it and take it as a positive way instead of negative. I tried to make him understand there should be no shame to it cause like you said "that is him". Thanks a lot for your comment I am sure I will try to drill it to his head that it is ok to be different.. Once again thanks and everybody talks about Prison Break I guess I have to see that show. hmmm interesting.. Thanks !!!!!
When I saw the prison break episode that talked about LLI, I was instantly interested and saw a relationship between the way I experience the world and the explanation of LLI. Now most tv shows aren't that deep so I did some research to understand the "condition" a little better.
I did an online IQ test as well. The result was 144, but it also gave subscores on various aspects. On processing speed the score was significantly lower than the average (about 120). Seems to make sense in relation to LLI. If you brain is processing much more information, then it's likely to take some more time and thus result in a slower speed. Though in reality it may be just as fast as the average person, it just does more stuff to reach an outcome.
Then I read somewhere that if you think you have LLI, then you probably don't have it, as it is not possible to self diagnose LLI. To be honest, I think that that is nonsense. Of course you can self diagnose LLI, though it may be difficult to determine the level of it. The level of latent inhibition is only lower compared to a certain average. It can be a little bit lower, extremely low, or any level in between. It is not one specific value that says: Now you have LLI.
As for myself, I believe I have LLI. Probably not extremely low LLI, but low enough to feel like I notice a lot more in the world around us than the average human being. That's not necessarily a blessing because often people think you´re "different" because of the things you say. So you generally don't say too much (especially when in groups), but when being very interested in something, I could talk for hours about it, boring the hell out of everybody. What bothers me most is that most people have only very specific interests and do not want to know about other things. I'm somebody that is interested in many things (the discovery channel is one of my favorite channels, though they should stop with those haunted shows, what a load of ****).
What I've learned over the years is that you can't pass a certain moral level when analising people's behaviour. At least not when you´re discussing somebody else. The moment you pass this level people get upset or change the subject or simply stand up and leave. I don't understand why going past the morally acceptable level, simply to analise, is such a problem. The information my lead to a much more accurate conclusion (in which you of course do not pass the morally acceptable level)
It's sometimes difficult to ignore irrelevant information, but the older you get (I'm 37 now) the easier it becomes because of experience. Once you've seen something before you'll be able to remember it when needed (I often remember stuff, sometimes from many years ago, if it comes in handy)
Also interesting (at least to me) are the seasonal holidays. Christmas is the same every year for example. It's the same people talking about the same stuff, doing the same things. Maybe not in its details, but most certainly in the behaviour of the people involved, which can be very irritating at times. Always the same things happen to the same people and the same process is applied. I can't get upset with those things anymore. It doesn't bother me one bit anymore that some people I know are misserable for the same reasons while I know that later they'll be happy again and everything is like it never happened.
During my life I have come up with many theories about why my way of thinking is useful, I guess in a way to justify to myself I'm a bit different from the rest. I did love the times where I had to work with people that are really intelligent. Those are the times I can learn new things, which I love. I don't like studying that much (as in going to class), I'd rather experience and do research my self.
Oh well, I guess it is clear that this subject interests me a lot.. 🙂 I'm talking way too much already. If there ever will be a self test online to determine the level of LLI one has, I will most certainly take it. Seems not so difficult. Simply testing people's ability to notice things that most people will ignore doesn't sound too difficult. I remember this program on the discovery channel where they showed how concentration forces your brain to ignore other information. They showed people on a basketball field passing the a ball from one to the other. The task was to count how often the ball was passed. It took about 30 seconds. Later they showed it again but now you didn't have to count. Then all the sudden you saw a guy in a gorilla suit enter the court and spread his arms and then leave again. That I had not noticed when counting how often the ball was passed. I felt stupid! On the other hand, while I am writing this, it is raining outside and I'm hearing every car pass by passing over the wet street. Only when really concentrated on one specific task that requires your full attention, I do ignore the other information that comes in, which makes me believe my level of LLI isn't extremely low. I think I'd go crazy if it was.
Nifty article. I was diagnosed with A.D.H.D. in junior high school and then later diagnosed with A.D.D.. After years of medication destroying my nervous system, I saw that episode of Prison Break and it sounded a bit familiar as to my thought patterns and whatnot so asked my doctor about it. He simply replied "Oh… and after all that medication…"
I thought it was a bit funny the way he reacted and didn't hate him for it but I did wish I had seen this article 15 years ago.
Since I was quite young, when I enter a super market, I quickly find myself overwhelmed by information. First I notice the general categories of product, but quickly I find myself consumed by otherwise irrelevant details. Soon I'm nearly catatonic, reading the label of every box of salt. If I don't get out quickly, I might be found slumped over, unable to speak and barely able to walk. Once removed from the situation I recover in an hour or two.
Other situations in which I have more ability to categorize, e.g in a forest, the masses of information are compartmentalized effectively. I don't need to evaluate each leaf on each tree. I'm capable of seeing a forest.
Any form of creativity demands seeing things as they might be. An object or situation, once identified as e.g. a stick, might lie on the ground and be stepped over. As a pointer, stabber, lever, writing device, or digging device it might become many things. Creativity demands interpreting objects or situations in multiple ways. Problem solving presupposes problem creation. As long as a situation is interpreted in only one way it offers a simple problem with few solutions. If low latent inhibition implies that objects and situations might be constantly reevaluated, then problems are created and complexified as the interpretation of information becomes more ambiguous.
Politically, a conservative point of view involves seeing things as they've already been identified. A progressive point of view means seeing things as they might be. Both activities are as endemic to behavioral adaptation as they are to the process of mutation in evolution by natural selection. Accurately replicated DNA offers a familiar solution to an environmental problem. Inaccurately replicated DNA offers an original solution. If the environment has not changed, often the solution of a generation is the best solution for the next. When the environment changes, variants offer new solutions.
Politically the same model holds. When the environment changes people seek progressive leaders. When the environment stays the same, we naturally seek conservatives.
There is a magic number associated with mutation, in DNA, in social situations as well as in the individual, associated with conserving and transforming. Too much conservation and there is little ability to adapt. Too much reinterpretation, and the solutions of the past are lost. On a biological level, an organism fails to survive, on a social level the consensual agreements which bond a society fail and collapse occurs, and psychologically situations and even objects become open to reinterpretation.
An intelligent mind might recategorize and reintegrate quickly. One less adept, might become swamped in information. Or a third possibility might be that, coopted by an existing predispositions, an individual's interpretations of events and objects, might become the slave of an ideation called into service to solve unnamed often unconscious personal concerns, leading to various forms of psychosis.
I love these updates. This site attracts all the crazies, doesn't it? I especially liked the man saying that he had diagnosed himself with LLI after watching Prison Break. That was just priceless.
Neurology, psychology and medicine – we can forget all that and self-diagnose? Prison Break shows us how?
Are these people serious?
If OCD was featured in Prison Break, I guess you'd all have that too?
Climb up on the bandwagon, why don't you? Get in on the act. Be trendy.
I can't wait to read the updates on this post. Everything crawls out of the woodwork. Most of it is hilarious. Albeit inadvertently so.
ohhhh,..please!!!
if people miss-spell,…it's all the more likly they are LLI!!
creative genius is not book learned genius!
you would know that if you were x-tra creative!
raceing minds work faster than speach, the pen or the keyboard!
let alone even care about the spelling,…cuz that's the least important,.interesting or nessesity,…..the idea it's self is the point,(creativity)! as long as ya can read it,,so what!
besides what's spelling there's days,..r(are),u(you),..ect ect
anhoo,..L8tr!
craig
Emily,
I think it's a bit naive to consider low latent inhibition to be an ability. It's an inability if anything — an inability to inhibit latent stimuli. As a result the uninhibited individual is inundated with information. This demands rapid processing and a great capacity to categorize. If the process is successful the person is dubbed creative, if unsuccessful, crazy. Anticipating caped crusaders brandishing LLI on their chests to be swooping to the rescue perhaps misses the point.
Sorry to point out the obvious, Steve, but I don't think Emily was being serious. I think she was highlighting just how many cranks have posted on this site.
Craig – if you had LLI you couldn't miss your own spelling mistakes.
LLI is not about speed of thought, it is about seeing the details that other people miss. If you cannot see your own spelling errors, how can you conceivably have LLI?
You can't take an online IQ test, goof. It has to be administered by a doctor.
I noticed that 90% of these replies are by teenagers. Wow… So much for me trying to learn something. If you are a teenager, refrain from replying, please. Trust me, you all sound like the typical self-loathing adolescent from every generation :P.
I will check out the other sites mentioned.
i have been diagnosed by my psych wit LLI bout 6 months ago. so i hope i can shed a little light on wats its like to have LLI.
my hand writing was neva good.
my spellings were always terrible.
u can neva jst shut down ur mind even wen ur trying to relax, ur body n mind jst keep working together like if ur watching something on tv ull b able to hear everything around u feel every little change in the environment like temperture.
i pick up things that pple dont notice. i make assosiations with things that have a distance link to the topic at hand. and i jst have ideas and links like my brain is ready to burst. i always draw, and i remember every converstion i have.
i am 17 and have jst bn hire by sony in there research and development sector. an i think i wuldnt of bn able to do it with out LLI. so there are pros n cons to having it.
i am 26 and i have just found out i have low latent inhibition
People tell me that I "think too much." I don't know how to turn it off. I need meds to sleep at night or my thoughts keep me awake. Can't sleep with ANY external stimuli. I thought I had social anxiety in crowded places, but it was that just the need to see and hear everything going on around me was overload. I often need much time to myself to "sort out" daily info input. Need a lot of alone time, quiet time. It's all or nothing, let it all in, or completely shut down. My head feels like a busy beehive – always buzzing. I know answers, but only in pictures – I can't find words to describe something that makes so much sense that I can feel it in my core and it just kills me because I wish to share the comfort it brings me. Thoughts can paralyze me. Thoughts can feel like a religious experience. All the same, it's constant bombardment of sensations and observations. It's just too much and I just want to sleep.
Kay,
My boyfriend has LLI and what you just wrote not only summarized what he has told me but is what he goes thru. I am sorry to hear that that is the way you feel!
Tell me when you feel like "time alone" how often do you feel like this?
sometimes i want to kill my self everything upsets me i do not know what to do i just want to be left alone
i watch prison break – and – omg – i wish i could have this
imagine being able to escape from a high security prison!! and what he has hidden in his tattoos i was like WOOOOWWWWW lol
LLI sounds like me to a ‘T’. That plus OCD & Depression. I am lucky to be alive.
I wish I could say more but this piece of information is so new. See my link to YouTube.
This is the first time I’ve found anything relevant to my condition on the Internet.
Am I in the right place? I’ve made a presentation Zeitgeist: Genius Seculi on YouTube. It features my artwork/photographs/paintings related to this thing LLI. Guess I’ve always had it since a child. It’s a tough one…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUoiAGB5SG0
These updates are by and large embarrassing.
Most of the updates speak of LLI yet describe totally different symptoms. Racing thoughts, depression etc – these could be from sugar, caffeine or bypolar disorder. LLI empties the mind. It does not fill it.
It is unwise for a teenager to self-diagnose.
Yes, I agree and will repeat what I said before:
“You can’t take an online IQ test, goof. It has to be administered by a doctor.
I noticed that 90% of these replies are by teenagers. Wow… So much for me trying to learn something. If you are a teenager, refrain from replying, please. Trust me, you all sound like the typical self-loathing adolescent from every generation :P.”
My IQ is 115 according to HS standardized tests. Im artistic. The checklist
above is accurate to a T except Im not mechanical, and I usually keep my jobs
for 6-10yrs> Ive had 5 careers,(im 57yo female) all professional, including
teaching HS Biology for eight years.
I just watched ‘the human ape’ on Discovery channel> showed apes and human
children performing the same tasks.. Both taught to go through a number of
ritual steps to get a prize from a box. When given a clear box, ALL the apes
went directly to the last step to get the prize because it was ‘clear’ that they
didnt need to go through all the steps. ALL children continued to go through ALL
the steps to get the prize, even though it was obvious (even to an ape) that
they only needed to take the last step to get the reward. Apparently LLI is an
evolutionary advantage to learning in a cooperative manner. Other tests
confirmed Apes will not cooperate with other apes to achieve a common goal,
whereas even 1yo children will cooperate with other humans when its not in their
own interests. (ex> Adult drops something, child picks it up for them)
My sister has a high IQ and she is an amazing graphic artist (shes nuts but
manages things much better than I do). I have the lower IQ. Im always known for
the quality of my work, but I have to work harder than everyone else, because Im
extremely organized, and easily distracted by ideas.. compelled to learn more
about almost everything. Im dx major depression, bipolar and OCD. Is it possible
that OCD and LLI are connected? The OCD being a way to try to mentally organize
the battery of information coming at you all the time? try to avoid getting
overwhelmed by ideas?
it is cool to havt it
bridie, are you another one of those teenagers, too?
Bridie, you’ve just said (in terrible grammar, I might add) that you want to kill youself, and then it’s cool to have it.
This is a serious subject, so I fail to see what your purpose is here!
I personally don’t know if I have LLI or not, and I imagine this is the same case for almost everyone who’s posted here.
Having some form of mental condition seems to be becoming fashionable, and it’s frankly ridiculous!
I show the occasional symtom of being obsessive and compulsive, that doesn’t mean I have OCD, everyone feels that!
I feel very down sometimes, who doesn’t? Doesn’t mean I’m chronically depressed!
I notice more than other people, sure, that’s why I’m here researching the topic of LLI, but I, as you do, need to get a professional diagnosis done before I come on here spilling out cliché’d problems I heard off Prison Break!
If there any psychologists/health practitioner with experience in this field I would like you to contact me.
-low latent inhibition in a subject with 127-142 I.Q
-suffering from dysthymia since age 15,
-medical treatments for dysthymia and their possible affects on low latent inhibition.
This is for someone very close to me. The above is just a very general run-through of what I’m trying to figure out. Please contact me if you are EXPERIENCED in this field. I’m not looking for conversation over “Prison Break” and I’m not looking for some wannabe doctor. Just please don’t waste my time. Thank you.
Physikos Didaktor
genyen_dharmaketu_gonpo@hotmail.com
bridie, its sounds like you have depression. LLI is your brain accepting a much larger amount of information to process. For example, a normal person looks at a car, they classify it as a car and move on. But a person with LLI sees a car, and they see all the parts that make up the car, the colour, the license plate number, the driver and they see all this extra information for every car they see; nothing is just classified and dismissed. For people with LLI, it is like their brain is in constant overdrive. But you are saying you want to kill yourself; meaning you probably have messed up seratonin levels in your brain; you need anti-depressants. These drugs will tell your synapses to keep the seratonin longer before allowing it to pass. Thus effectively keeping the level of seratonin at a “normal” amount reducing the anxiety and frustration thats making you want to kill yourself. Tell me bridie, are you a religious person?
There is nothing cool about having LLI. All i can say is You are in constant prime. incredibly alert and aware. Unable to trust cognitive abilities everything is a plan!!!!!!
For me sh** really hit the fan when i was returning to work after being away on sick leave…I had a pyschotic episode. i could sense everything. EVERYTHING!!!! and the emotion of considering all the possible ways of dealing with a situation was sooooo overwhelming. My brain just snapped! i could sense when i was being lied to, i could sense when people were testing me to see if i still had it together!!!! i had this 1000 yard gaze in my eye…i left work that day and went staight back to hospital!tranquilized…out for 9 hours…wake up next thing i know am Like a vegatable. My eyes were open but i could see nothing. my ears????….. not a sound my mind like an empty sound proof room. I have never felt so relieved in my entire life. 19 days later am picking up the pieces of my life.
The only correlation between LLI and creativity is people with it question everything!! Nothing is acceptable unless all other possible solutions have been exhausted. Too high a price to pay for knowledge i would rather have been born a conformist.
Did a doctor say you have LLI and how old are you?
I take that to mean that you do not have an official diagnosis. We’re just trying to learn about this from first-hand accounts. You sound like the others :(.