Check out this research summary at BPS Research. This study showed that the rate of eye-blinking was linked to performance on a creative task — bot not to IQ. Those subjects who blinked at a moderate rate were most creative. Apparently, eye-blinking frequency is linked to dopamine. As BPS reports:
The researchers pointed to evidence showing, for example, that patients
diagnosed with schizophrenia, which is associated with excess dopamine,
tend to have high eye blink rates. Patients with Parkinson's, by
contrast, which is associated with reduced dopamine, show low eye blink
rates. They also highlighted past research linking dopamine with
creativity. For example, there's evidence that positive mood – which is
related to dopamine levels – can enhance creativity, although the
results in this area have been extremely inconsistent.
Now, this is just one study, but the implications are intriguing, and a bit scary. If you have ever seen Blade Runner, you may recall that the test they used to determine if a creature was a human or a "replicant" entailed asking various strange questions and watching for changes in the rate of blinking. I can imagine some employment test based on the same principle, where — much like Harrison Ford did in Blade Runner — job candidates are given some test to determine their blinking rate. Perhaps in our strange future, employers will forget the job sample test and other tried and true predictors, or the portfolio of past work, or that training in design thinking, and just look at the blinking rate!
I hope this is just a strange fantasy, but it is a cool study.
The reference is: Chermahini,
S., & Hommel, B. (2010). The (b)link between creativity and
dopamine: Spontaneous eye blink rates predict and dissociate divergent
and convergent thinking. Cognition,
115 (3), 458-465
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