Processing of unconventional stimuli requires the recruitment of the non-specialized hemisphere

Yoed N. Kenett, David Anaki, Miriam Faust

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

In the present study we investigate hemispheric processing of conventional and unconventional visual stimuli in the context of visual and verbal creative ability. In Experiment 1, we studied two unconventional visual recognition tasks—Mooney face and objects’ silhouette recognition—and found a significant relationship between measures of verbal creativity and unconventional face recognition. In Experiment 2 we used the split visual field (SVF) paradigm to investigate hemispheric processing of conventional and unconventional faces and its relation to verbal and visual characteristics of creativity. Results showed that while conventional faces were better processed by the specialized right hemisphere (RH), unconventional faces were better processed by the non-specialized left hemisphere (LH). In addition, only unconventional face processing by the non-specialized LH was related to verbal and visual measures of creative ability. Our findings demonstrate the role of the non-specialized hemisphere in processing unconventional stimuli and how it relates to creativity.

Original languageEnglish
Article number32
JournalFrontiers in Human Neuroscience
Volume9
Issue numberFEB
DOIs
StatePublished - 9 Feb 2015

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2015, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. All rights received.

Keywords

  • Creativity
  • Expertize
  • Hemispheric specialization
  • Mooney faces
  • Non-specialized system
  • Un/conventional processing

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