Hemispheric Collaboration in Creative Subjects: Cross-Hemisphere Priming in a Lexical Decision Task

Abstract

The literature provides 3 proposals regarding hemispheric involvement in the creative process: the right hemisphere is “more creative,” the 2 hemispheres are complementary, and the hemispheric collaboration model that argues that the 2 hemispheres function as a collaborative unit in a synergistic manner. This study tested the hemispheric collaboration model. Forty-eight participants completed the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, Figural and Verbal forms. The participants then performed a visual half-field lexical decision task at both a 50 milliseconds (ms) and 750 ms stimulus onset asynchrony in which the primes and targets were presented either ipsilaterally or contralaterally. Results revealed that individuals scoring high on creativity exhibit higher degrees of priming to contralateral presentation of prime-target pairs, while subjects scoring low on creativity exhibit increased priming to prime-target pairs presented to the left VF, right hemisphere. The results of the study support a hemispheric collaboration model of creative cognition and suggest a mechanism for hemispheric synthesis of the left- and right-hemisphere worldviews.