On Wed, 1 Mar 2000, Pam Blundell wrote:
> It is often said that left handed people are more creative, but a
> statistical study was carried out by John Aggleton, comparing occurance of
> lefthandedness amoung musicians and a 'normal' control group (cricketers),
> and he found no difference. This is an example where a commonly held belief
> about creative people is actually wrong, and I would expect the same to be
> found for the creative-depression link.
Hi Pam,
first of all, let me tell you that I also think there is no connection
between depression or handedness and creativity, except maybe that
lefthanded people are forced to be more creative in trying to figure out
how to use righthanded tools.
But I think the Aggleton study maybe irrelevant in so far as it assumes
that playing cricket involves less creativity than playing (not
composing!) music. This would be the case if the musicians group were
players rather than composers. After all, both playing tasks demand a
pretty good motion coordination to get good results, whereas, composing
music (the probably more creative process) does not demand any motor
skills in the first place. Although it may help a lot to be able to play
the music one has composed.
Greetings, Leo
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ralph Leonhardt (Dipl.-Biol.) Tel.: +49 (0)234 322 5559
Inst. f. Neuroinformatik, Geb. ND 04/297 Fax: +49 (0)234 321 4209
Ruhr-Universitaet-Bochum
D-44780 Bochum, Germany
E-mail: ralph.leonhardt at neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
URL: http://www.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/ini/PEOPLE/leo/top.html
