Latent inhibition (LI) is a robust phenomenon in which repeated preexposure to a stimulus that is not reinforced retards future associability to that stimulus (Lubow,1989). LI has been uniformly accepted as an adaptive mechanism across a variety of species (Lubow & Gewirtz, 1995). In humans, a deficit in LI has been associated with the active phase of schizophrenia and with psychosis-proneness (Baruch, Hemsley, & Gray, 1988a, 1988b; Lubow, Ingberg-Sachs, Zalstein-Orda, & Gewirtz, 1992). However, attenuated LI has also been reported in non-disordered normal subjects (see Braunstein-Bercovitz, Rammsayer, Gibbons, & Lubow, 2002), suggesting that attenuated LI exists on a continuum that extends from hospitalized psychotics to high-functioning normals. Recent research suggests that there may be situations in which attenuated LI actually confers an advantage to individuals. There is a growing body of evidence that indicates attenuated LI may be present in a subset of high-functioning and creative individuals (e.g. Carson, Peterson, & Higgins, 2003; Peterson & Carson, 2000). Attenuated LI may increase the probability of making novel or original associations among disparate stimuli by increasing the amount of information available to conscious awareness.
The theoretical relationship of creativity and latent inhibition
Latent inhibition is widely accepted as an index of the ability to ignore irrelevant stimuli (Lubow & Kaplan, 2005). When latent inhibition is expressed, the ability to form associations to information deemed irrelevant is reduced. Conversely, when latent inhibition is attenuated, the ability to form associations to seemingly irrelevant information is expanded.