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Nick Byrd, Ph.D.

@ByrdNick@nerdculture.de · 2 weeks ago

Do #psychedelics aid reasoning?

In over 5000 participants, psychedelic users scored better on some tests — but they were also younger, more educated men.

Correcting for #age, #gender, and #education nullified differences in reflective thinking.

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2601.04380

4 media

"This study was conducted as an optional part of the Great British Intelligence Test January 2022 follow-up, in which participants had the option of completing an additional battery of cognitive tests measuring creativity and cognitive reflection (Hampshire et al., 2021). .... In total, follow-up data were obtained from 8,917 observations."

"Divergent thinking was assessed using the Divergent Association Task (DAT), a brief, reliable, and objective measure of divergent thinking (Olson et al., 2021). Participants listed 10 unrelated nouns, which were analysed for semantic distance using open-access software (www.datcreativity.com), with scores above 100 considered indicative of high divergent thinking."

"Cognitive reflection was measured using a four-item Cognitive Reflection Task (CRT), comprising the original three items (Frederick, 2005) and an additional item from Primi et al. (2016). Responses were aggregated and coded to account for variations in answer formats." — "Divergent thinking was assessed using the Divergent Association Task (DAT), a brief, reliable, and objective measure of divergent thinking (Olson et al., 2021). Participants listed 10 unrelated nouns, which were analysed for semantic distance using open-access software (www.datcreativity.com), with scores above 100 considered indicative of high divergent thinking." "Cognitive reflection was measured using a four-item Cognitive Reflection Task (CRT), comprising the original three items (Frederick, 2005) and an additional item from Primi et al. (2016). Responses were aggregated and coded to account for variations in answer formats."

Figure 4 shows psychedelic users scored higher on tests of divergent and reflective thinking (before correcting for the detected confounds of age, gender, and education).

"Psychedelic users in our sample leaned disproportionately toward male, young, and more-educated participants. .... CRT scores were adjusted for age, sex, and education using linear regression and then transformed using a rank-based inverse normal transformation. A one-way ANOVA on the adjusted scores showed no significant effect of drug group, F(2, 5774) = 1.71, p = .18. Tukey HSD post-hoc comparisons confirmed no significant differences between:

No drug use vs. Drug use but not psychedelics: p = .917
No drug use vs. Psychedelic use: p = .160
Drug use but not psychedelics vs. Psychedelic use: p = .211

CRT performance did not differ meaningfully between the groups." — "Psychedelic users in our sample leaned disproportionately toward male, young, and more-educated participants. .... CRT scores were adjusted for age, sex, and education using linear regression and then transformed using a rank-based inverse normal transformation. A one-way ANOVA on the adjusted scores showed no significant effect of drug group, F(2, 5774) = 1.71, p = .18. Tukey HSD post-hoc comparisons confirmed no significant differences between: No drug use vs. Drug use but not psychedelics: p = .917 No drug use vs. Psychedelic use: p = .160 Drug use but not psychedelics vs. Psychedelic use: p = .211 CRT performance did not differ meaningfully between the groups."

Past Psychedelic Use Predicts Divergent Thinking

Psychedelics have shown potential in treating a range of mental health conditions, yet far less is known about their impact on creativity. This study examined three components of creativity-divergent thinking, cognitive reflection, and insight in a large sample (N = 5,905) from the Great British Intelligence Test. We compared performance between individuals with past psychedelic use and those without such use. Psychedelic users scored significantly higher on divergent thinking than both non-drug users and drug users who had not used psychedelics. However, they did not score higher on measures of cognitive reflection, number of insights, or insight accuracy. These findings suggest that naturalistic psychedelic use may be associated with enhanced divergent thinking, but not enhanced insight-related performance. Future research should aim to establish causality through prospective designs and controlled studies incorporating long-term follow-up, biological data, and personality structure assessment.

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