Is perception the missing link between creativity, curiosity and schizotypy? Evidence from spontaneous eye-movements and responses to auditory oddball stimuli

What is the relationship between creativity, curiosity, and schizotypy? Schizophrenia-spectrum conditions and creativity have been linked to deficits in filtering sensory information, and curiosity is associated with information-seeking. This raises the possibility of a perception-based link between all three concepts. Here, we investigated whether the same individual differences in perceptual encoding explain variance in creativity, curiosity, and schizotypy. We administered an active auditory oddball task and a free viewing eye-tracking paradigm (N = 88). Creativity was measured with the figural portion of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) and two self-report scales. Schizotypy and curiosity were measured with self-reports. We found that creativity was associated with increased reaction time to the rare tone in the oddball task and was positively associated with the number and duration of fixations in the free viewing task. Schizotypy, on the other hand, showed a negative trend with the number and duration of fixations. Both creativity and curiosity were positively associated with explorative eye movements (unique number of regions visited) and Shannon entropy, while schizotypy was negatively associated with entropy. We further compared saliency maps finding that individuals high versus low in creativity and curiosity, respectively, exhibit differences in where they look. These findings may suggest a perception-based link between creativity and curiosity, but not schizotypy. Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.