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Love Boosts Creativity, Lust Improves Logic: Study
Tests find that logic puzzles stump the romantic, while the lustful lack creative thinking
By Rob Quinn
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Posted Sep 1, 09 9:29 AM CDT
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(Newser)
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The lovestruck enjoy a surge in creative powers while those who are merely randy are sharper logicians, a new study finds. Dutch researchers asked students to imagine either a romantic walk with a loved one or a one-night stand with a casual acquaintance before giving them a set of problems involving either creative thinking or logic, Miller-McCune reports.
On problems calling for creative thinking, the group with romance in mind outperformed both the lustful and a control group asked to imagine themselves a solitary stroll, while the reverse was true for the logic puzzles. The results, researchers say, demonstrate that people "process information in two fundamentally different ways: They focus on the forest, or they focus on the trees." The romantic were looking at the long-term picture, they say, while those with sex on the brain were more suited to pursuing short-term goals—such as "specific strategies of seduction."