Left Brain Hemisphere Also Plays Big Part In Creative Thinking, Study Shows

Everyone knows that the left-brained are the logical ones, and the right-brained are the creative types. But a new study shows that while creativity is largely a right-brained task, the left hemisphere of the brain plays a part, too.

Researchers from the University of Southern California published a study in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience showing that the left brain is a crucial supporter of the right brain for creative tasks.

"We need both hemispheres for creative processing," study researcher Lisa Aziz-Zadeh, an assistant professor at USC, said in a statement.

To find this, Aziz-Zadeh and her colleagues looked at brain scans of architecture students using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). (Architecture students are known to be visually creative.)

While undergoing the brain scans, the study participants looked at the shape of a circle, the shape of a C and the shape of an 8. Then, the study participants visualized what new images could be created if they rearranged the circle, C and 8 (considered a creative task).

They also visualized piecing the three shapes together to make a square or rectangle (even though this was considered a spatial processing task, it wasn't considered a creative task).

The researchers found that during the creative task, the study participants' brains lit up in the left hemisphere mores than the right, which shows that the left brain was working to support the right brain's creativity.

Another recent study provides another kind of insight into our left- or right-brainedness -- the side of the head we prefer to use our cell phones.

That research, presented at a meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, showed that left-brained people tend to listen to their cell phones with their right ears, while right-brained people tend to listen to their cell phones with their left ears. (You can read more about that here.)

Comments

[Jonathan Vernon]

12:11 PM on 11/30/2012

The idea of ‘left brain’ versus ‘right brain’ learning has no credence in neuroscience.

The idea appears to stem from the fact that there is some hemispheric specialisation in terms of the localisation of different skills.

For example, many aspects of language processing are left-lateralised (although not in blind people or in those who emigrate in later childhood to a new linguistic community). Some aspects of face recognition, in contrast, are right-lateralised. However, it is also a fact that there are massive cross -hemisphere connections in the normal brain. Both hemispheres work together in every cognitive task so far explored with neuroimaging, including language and face recognition tasks.

So far, neuroimaging data demonstrate that both ‘left brain’ and ‘right brain’ are involved in all cognitive tasks.

Goswami (2004:180)

REFERENCE

Goswami, U. (2004) ‘Neuroscience, science and special education’, British Journal of Special Education, 31 (4), 175–183.

[artistinresidence]

12:52 PM on 03/09/2012

I think both sides of the brain are used for any artistic endeavor.
I would hope that every architect uses both hemispheres: the right for esthetics and beauty and the left for engineering (I'm being simplistic).
I now believe that all artists, though, use both sides of the brain. Consider an artist drawing something: measurements are taken mentally (left brain), and a successful drawing needs balance and I think the left brain comes into play there too.
Musicians are known to have developed corpus callusums (sp) which means processing is going back and forth from one hemisphere to the other.
How do you spell callusum?
My remarks were overly simplistic, but I don't think you can find any creative person who is entirely right-brained.
Interesting article, by the way.

[elenaanat]

01:13 PM on 03/07/2012

I usually listen to cell phone with my left ear, so I am right-brained ? But I don't thing that i am creative so much...

[EmsBaker]

10:37 AM on 03/07/2012

Interesting. British scholar Iain McGilchrist has worked a lot on the differing roles of the brain's hemisphere, showing how they are generally both involved in most processes simultaneously. I recently watched a great talk given by him: http://iai.tv/video/a-spider-in-the-eye

[ArtsyJane]

09:36 AM on 03/07/2012

Architectural students, while very creative are among those rare people who have to develop a right brain/left brain blend if they want to survive professionally- architecture is as much about creativity as it is about logic and organization. Same with film-making, for example.

The experiment needs to be repeated with more primordially creative subjects- a music composer while he is composing, an artist while he is painting, a poet while he is writing.

[ArtsyJane]

09:31 AM on 03/07/2012

This cell phone thing is ridiculous. Most people are right handed, so they tend to hold their phone with their right hand and on their right ear.

That's all there is to it.

[emily00011]

04:13 AM on 03/08/2012

I'm right handed but prefer my left. in case you didn't realize the motor neuron pathways CROSS, meaning your left brain steers the right side.

Why are people with only an American-level science education suddenly qualified to sp.it back at expert researchers? apparently arrog.ance is part of the education.

[ArtsyJane]

06:18 AM on 03/08/2012

Wow! Did I offend you personally? Are the author of this breakthrough scientific finding? I'm sorry I burst your bubble.

For the record, I am not American, but French and have received my education in France. Am I arrogant? From the sound of it here, I pale in arrogance in front of you.

I'm not spitting back at "expert research", I am just pointing out an obvious element. And I do realize that the left brain controls the right hand side- it's something people know since childhood- but maybe in your woods it qualifies as "expertise". However, that doesn't change anything of what I said- most people tend to use their right hand regardless of whether they are left brain oriented or right brain oriented, be it with telephones or other objects. And that's because they're right handed.

[artistinresidence]

12:45 PM on 03/09/2012

Maybe not. I recently read that left handed people are 40 per cent right brained. But one would reach for a cell phone with their dominant hand and use the closest ear.

[ArtsyJane]

10:32 AM on 03/10/2012

"But one would reach for a cell phone with their dominant hand and use the closest ear."

Exactly.

Right-handedness and left-handedness are not causally related to the left-brain/right-brain divide. Left-handed people tend to have out of the ordinary psycho-motor skills and grasp of language, because a lot of them are actually ambidextrous.

[Iol Sor]

08:57 AM on 03/07/2012

The specific experiment doesn't prove what it claims to prove.

[Sara Catherine Jenks]

09:23 AM on 03/07/2012

I am neither disagreeing nor agreeing with you - but did you read their paper? http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/02/19/scan.nss021.abstract?sid=eaeab6d2-d1d9-4c1c-affa-524cd9c4813b

[spydrworks1067]

04:12 AM on 03/07/2012

Perhaps this is how remembering the words to a song is easier than a paragraph in a book. Put that paragraph to a song for better recall.