Creativity, mental imagery, and cerebral dominance

The present study was designed to explore the relationship between creative ability, mental imagery ability, and cerebral hemispheric dominance. The relationship between these three factors was measured by the administration of nine different tests.

Sixty-six undergraduate students enrolled in psychology courses at a small southern community college served as subjects. They received three tests of creative ability, three tests of mental imagery ability, and three tests of cerebral hemispheric dominance. A Latin square design was employed in administering the tests, in order to minimize any order effect.

It was hypothesized that positive, vivid, mental imagery would have a positive relationship with creative ability. It was also hypothesized that the use of the right cerebral hemisphere would have a positive relationship with creative ability. None of the correlations that measured the original hypotheses were found to be significant. . It was demonstrated, however, that creative ability was positively related to the age of the subject. When the variable, age, was held constant, one of the tests that measured right cerebral dominance was found to have a significant relationship with creative ability.