{"id":330,"date":"2012-05-24T13:54:42","date_gmt":"2012-05-24T13:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.workplaceinteractors.com\/theinteraction\/?p=330"},"modified":"2012-05-24T13:54:42","modified_gmt":"2012-05-24T13:54:42","slug":"distraction-and-creativity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.workplaceinteractors.com\/theinteraction\/2012\/05\/24\/distraction-and-creativity\/","title":{"rendered":"Distraction and creativity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>More from J<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jonahlehrer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">onah Lehrer&#8217;s<\/a> <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Imagine-Creativity-Works-Jonah-Lehrer\/dp\/0547386079\" target=\"_blank\">Imagine<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/em>He&#8217;s describing a study by neuroscientists at Harvard and the University of Toronto:<em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">&#8230;the ability to ignore outside stimuli&#8230;is typically seen as an essential component of productivity&#8230;.[Those test subjects] who had a tougher time ignoring unrelated stuff were also <em>seven<\/em> times more likely to be rated as &#8220;eminent creative achievers&#8221; based on their previous accomplishments.\u00a0 (The association was particularly strong among distractible students with high IQs.)\u00a0 According to the scientists, the inability to focus helps ensure a richer mixture of thoughts in consciousness.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The distractible subjects took in more information and had a less rigid view of what <a href=\"http:\/\/www.workplaceinteractors.com\/theinteraction\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/distraction1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-336\" title=\"distraction1\" src=\"http:\/\/www.workplaceinteractors.com\/theinteraction\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/distraction1-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>might be relevant to the task at hand.\u00a0 They were more open to unexpected relationships between concepts &#8212; the essence of creativity.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m glad to hear this, because I&#8217;ve noticed that my own mind seems to be more &#8212; what&#8217;s that sound?\u00a0 Oh, sorry. &#8212; distractible than it used to be.\u00a0 (Or perhaps I&#8217;m just noticing it more.)\u00a0 In any case, my irritating inability to focus when a radio&#8217;s on in the background might actually be a fount of creativity.<\/p>\n<p>What was I saying?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More from Jonah Lehrer&#8217;s Imagine.\u00a0 He&#8217;s describing a study by neuroscientists at Harvard and the University of Toronto: &#8230;the ability to ignore outside stimuli&#8230;is typically seen as an essential component of productivity&#8230;.[Those test subjects] who had a tougher time ignoring unrelated stuff were also seven times more likely to be rated as &#8220;eminent creative achievers&#8221; &hellip;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.workplaceinteractors.com\/theinteraction\/2012\/05\/24\/distraction-and-creativity\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9,1,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creativity","category-imagination","category-performance","category-productivity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.workplaceinteractors.com\/theinteraction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.workplaceinteractors.com\/theinteraction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.workplaceinteractors.com\/theinteraction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.workplaceinteractors.com\/theinteraction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.workplaceinteractors.com\/theinteraction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.workplaceinteractors.com\/theinteraction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":339,"href":"http:\/\/www.workplaceinteractors.com\/theinteraction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions\/339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.workplaceinteractors.com\/theinteraction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.workplaceinteractors.com\/theinteraction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.workplaceinteractors.com\/theinteraction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}