**1. Introduction**

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Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are neurodevelopmental conditions that are associated with an astonishing combination of cognitive strengths and weaknesses with a substantial minority of individuals displaying some exceptional creative abilities, reaching genius pro‐ portions in some rare cases. Creativity is a multifactorial construct and neuroscience is only beginning to unravel some of the cognitive components involved in the creative process. In this chapter we contrast neuroscientific evidence from creativity research with models at‐ tempting to explain talent and creativity in ASD. Although there are no agreed definitions for creativity the formulation put forward by Griffiths [1] "Creativity is a mental journey be‐ tween ideas or concepts that involves either a novel route or a novel destination" (p.6) seems to fit the picture very well. Various explanations and theories have been put forward to account for creativity ranging from unconscious mechanisms, cognitive processes, special abilities and personal traits to links with genetic processes and psychopathology.

The classical portrait of autism is that of rigid, stereotyped behaviours, a preference for sameness and a resulting lack of imagination. Therefore, the prevalent view is that creativity and imaginative thought are extremely difficult or impossible for individuals with ASD. There is substantial research evidence that almost all forms of imagination are impaired in autism including lack of pretend play, pragmatic language, comprehension and construc‐ tion of narrative, theory of mind and experimental tests of creativity [2-6]. A significant chal‐ lenge to this perceived lack of creativity is the enormous achievements that some people with ASD show in creative and scientific fields. Some theorists and clinicians have therefore challenged the view of impoverished creativity in ASD [7-12].

In this review the focus is on a subgroup of individuals on the autistic spectrum who dis‐ play exceptional creative talents and abilities. The features of ASD that favour creativity in‐

© 2013 Lyons and Fitzgerald; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2013 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

clude narrow interests, great persistence, ability to see details within a whole, a fascination with facts (rather than people) and having savant type talents. While social imagination is impaired, autistic imagination of the Einsteinian type is amplified.

Many features of Asperger syndrome enhance creativity, but the ability to focus deeply on a topic and to take endless pains is characteristic. Hans Asperger [24] emphasized the intensi‐ ty with which special interests are pursued already in his first lecture about children with "autistic psychopathology". It appears that these unique qualities of concentration and also perception as discussed in subsequent paragraphs in individuals with ASD may give rise to extraordinary creative abilities. Exceptionally gifted people like for example the animal sci‐ entist and author Temple Grandin [25] declares that her autism, as manifested in her acute visual/spatial mind and in her powers of concentration is what has made her success possi‐ ble (p.188). People with Asperger syndrome live very much in their intellects, and certain forms of creativity benefit greatly from this [26]. Apart from good concrete intelligence addi‐ tional characteristics of a gifted person with ASD include, ability to disregard social conven‐ tions, unconcern about the opinions of others and a sometimes-childlike naivety and

Critical Evaluation of the Concept of Autistic Creativity

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According Nancy Andreasen [27], who made a significant contribution to research on creativity, the personality traits that characterize creative individuals include "openness to experience, adventuresomeness, rebelliousness, individualism, … persistence, curiosity, simplicity, … the ability to see things in a different and novel way, indifference to social conventions, dislike of externally imposed rules, driven by own set of rules derived from within and a childlike manner" (p.30-32). Not surprisingly, the above two descriptions

Creativity is a multidimensional construct and cognitive neuroscience is only beginning to understand the many cognitive components involved in creative thinking including the neu‐ ral substrates underlying these processes [for a review see 28]. Theories of creativity in gen‐ eral suggest that creativity is linked to attentional capacity [29] and associative or divergent thinking processes [30]. Mendelsohn [31] emphasised the specific role of "defocused" atten‐ tion or a widened attentional ability in highly creative individuals, which is in contrast with the extremely narrow focus of attention ascribed to individuals with autism [e.g. 32]. Like‐ wise, divergent thinking, which involves the production of a variety of responses [33] and assumes to depend on extensively connected neural networks also conflicts with the well re‐ ported neural underconnectivity and enhanced local networks found in autism. As pointed out by Nettle [34] "different domains of creativity require different cognitive profiles, with poetry and art associated with divergent thinking, schizophrenia and affective disorder, and mathematics associated with convergent thinking and autism" (p.1). It appears that other concepts of information processing need to be considered when attempting to elucidate the specific and unique mechanisms underlying autistic creativity. In the words of Allan Snyder [35] "The fact that genius might fall within the autistic spectrum challenges our deepest no‐ tions of creativity. Are there radically different routes to creativity: normal and autistic?" (p.

inquisitiveness.

are strikingly similar.

1403).

**3. Cognitive processes involved in creativity**
