Reductions in latent inhibition (LI), the capacity to screen from conscious awareness stimuli previously experienced as irrelevant, have been generally associated with the tendency towards psychosis. However, “failure”  to  screen  out  previously  irrelevant  stimuli  might  also  hypothetically  contribute  to  original thinking, particularly in combination with high IQ. Meta-analysis of two studies, conducted on youthful high-IQ samples, demonstrated that high lifetime creative achievers had significantly lower LI scores than  low  creative  achievers. Eminent  creative  achievers
(participants  under  21  years  who  reported  unusually  high  scores  in  a  single  domain  of  creative achievement) were 7 times more likely to have low rather than high LI scores.