Chomp, chew, slurp, gulp – If your ultimate pet peeve is people who chew loudly it could mean that you are a creative genius, new research suggests.
Loud eating and its ability to distract you could have something to do with a link between sensory responses and creative intelligence, according to a study from Northwestern University in Illinois.
Researchers discovered that a reduced capacity to filter out conflicting sensory information, such as loud eating, is a common trait in well-known creative geniuses such as Charles Darwin, Anton Chekhov and Marcel Proust.
For the study, they looked at 100 participants and tested them with different measurements for creative thinking including a ‘divergent thinking’ test as well as a ‘Creative Achievement Questionnaire.’ For the thinking test the participants had to think up as many answers as they could to a number of unlikely scenarios in a limited amount of time. The questionnaire was used to record the participant’s real-life creative achievements.
It was shown that those who had creative achievements also showed a reduced ability to filter peripheral noises and to block those noises from their awareness.
So don’t let that loud eating co-worker get you down, you could, in fact, be a bit of a creative genius.
Photo credit: lassedesignen/Shutterstock