UC Riverside

Years of research have shown that the brain uses both hemispheres to produce creative thought. Despite this, the relation between interhemispheric interaction and creativity is understudied. The present study investigated how interhemispheric summation, integration, and control related to creativity while controlling for verbal IQ and openness. The study utilized three interhemispheric interaction tasks – bilateral gain, across-field advantage, and metacontrol – to predict multiple measures of convergent and divergent creativity. Remote associates test accuracy was associated with decreased left hemispheric metacontrol. This suggests that, to the extent that the left hemisphere dominates processing, some forms of creativity are reduced. No other measure of interhemispheric interaction was associated with creativity performance. It was found that verbal IQ and openness were more consistent predictors of creativity measures than measures of interhemispheric interaction. This study suggests that the interhemispheric advantage of summation and integration plays a limited role in creative performance, but that hemispheric control is involved in verbal convergent creativity.