Brain and Cognition 70 (2009) 267–272

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Brain and Cognition

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/b&c

Hemispheric connectivity and the visual–spatial divergent-thinking component

of creativity
Dana W. Moore a,*, Rafeeque A. Bhadelia b, Rebecca L. Billings c, Carl Fulwiler d, Kenneth M. Heilman e,
Kenneth M.J. Rood f, David A. Gansler g
a
Department of Neurology and Neuroscience, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York Presbyterian Hospital, 428 East 72nd Street, Suite 500, New York, NY 10021,
United States
b
Departments of Radiology, Tufts University School of Medicine and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, United States
c
Department of Psychology, Suffolk University and Judge Baker Children’s Center, Boston, MA, United States
d
Departments of Psychiatry, Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, University of Massachusetts Medical School, and Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, United States
e
Department of Neurology, University of Florida College of Medicine and The Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Gainesville, FL, United States
f
Department of Behavioral Neuroscience, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States
g
Department of Psychology, Suffolk University and Department of Psychiatry, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Background/hypothesis: Divergent thinking is an important measurable component of creativity. This
Accepted 25 February 2009 study tested the postulate that divergent thinking depends on large distributed inter- and intra-hemi-
Available online 7 April 2009 spheric networks. Although preliminary evidence supports increased brain connectivity during divergent
thinking, the neural correlates of this characteristic have not been entirely specified. It was predicted that
Keywords: visuospatial divergent thinking would correlate with right hemisphere white matter volume (WMV) and
Divergent thinking with the size of the corpus callosum (CC).
Brain Imaging
Methods: Volumetric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) analyses and the Torrance Tests of Creative
Creativity
Creative
Thinking (TTCT) were completed among 21 normal right-handed adult males.
White matter Results: TTCT scores correlated negatively with the size of the CC and were not correlated with right or,
Corpus callosum incidentally, left WMV.
Right hemisphere Conclusions: Although these results were not predicted, perhaps, as suggested by Bogen and Bogen
Volumetric (1988), decreased callosal connectivity enhances hemispheric specialization, which benefits the incuba-
Volumetry tion of ideas that are critical for the divergent-thinking component of creativity, and it is the momentary
Quantitative MRI inhibition of this hemispheric independence that accounts for the illumination that is part of the innova-
tive stage of creativity. Alternatively, decreased CC size may reflect more selective developmental prun-
ing, thereby facilitating efficient functional connectivity.
Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
During the past several decades, researchers have begun to
examine the neuropsychological, anatomic, and physiological
mechanisms that might account for creativity. Divergent thinking
is an important and measurable aspect of creativity. However,
divergent thinking is usually not assessed in most tests of intelli-
gence. The goal of this study was to learn how visual–spatial diver-
gent thinking, as measured by performance-based tasks, relates to
anatomic measures derived from structural brain imaging.
Sternberg (1999) operationalized the construct of creativity as
one of three components of intelligence (analytical, practical, and
creative). Carroll (1993), in his three-stratum theory of intelligence,
* Corresponding author. Fax: +1 212 746 5584.
E-mail addresses: dwm2003@med.cornell.edu, dwiebe@alum.suffolk.edu (D.W.
Moore).
placed creativity and figural fluency within the retrieval factor on
the second stratum. Guilford (1967) proposed that divergent think-
ing is a key aspect of creativity (p. 166). According to Guilford, diver-
gent production pertains primarily to information retrieval and the
call for a number of varied responses to a certain item (p. 138). Con-
vergent reasoning, which is also an important component of creativ-
ity, functions when information is sufficient to determine a unique
answer (p. 171). Ryder, Pring, and Hermelin (2002), found among
students matched for intelligence that divergent thinking predicted
artistic talent. Kim (2008) using a meta-analysis demonstrated that
divergent-thinking scores have a significantly stronger relationship
with creative achievement than do scores on intelligence tests.
These findings support the validity of divergent thinking as predic-
tive of creative ability and as a different construct from crystallized
or fluid intelligence (Horn, 1994).
Several researchers have theoretically linked creativity with the
concepts of novelty, variety, and the ability to conceive of multiple

0278-2626/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2009.02.011
268 D.W. Moore et al. / Brain and Cognition 70 (2009) 267–272
ideas. Divergent thinking would be important in the process of
generating these novel ideals. Pfenninger and Shubik (2001) sug-
gested that creativity is the innate ability to ‘‘associate novel con-
texts with principles of order” (p. 235). Heilman (2005) defined
creativity as the discovery of ‘‘unity in the variety of nature” (p. 6).
The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT; Torrance, 1966)
are among the most widely used assessments of creativity (Cra-
mond, Matthews-Morgan, Torrance, & Zuo, 1999). These tests use
divergent-thinking production tasks and yield scores for fluency,
flexibility, originality, abstractness of titles, resistance to premature clo-
sure, and elaboration. There is a verbal TTCT and a figural TTCT. Clap-
ham (1998) analyzed the structure of the subscores of the figural
TTCT among 334 introductory psychology students using principle
components analysis and found that individual subscores contrib-
uted very little unique variance to the total index and therefore
likely reflected one general factor. However, the contributions of
the different subscores were not completely redundant, so use of
all subscores was recommended. Plucker (1999) showed that TTCT
test scores explain almost half of the variance in creative achieve-
ment, as measured by an estimate of the quantity of publicly recog-
nized creative achievements such as inventions, articles, and awards
for creativity and a list of each participant’s three most creative
achievements rated by judges on overall creativity. The contribution
of TTCT scores to creative achievement was three times that of IQ
scores. Kim (2008) found through meta-analysis that TTCT tests pre-
dict creative achievement in areas including art, writing, science,
and music (r = .33) better than any other divergent-thinking test.
Neuropsychological assessments have provided evidence of the
link between resection and agenesis of the corpus callosum and a
reduction in cognitive complexity. For example, Lewis (1979) dem-
onstrated reduced cognitive complexity in 11 patients who had
undergone callosal resection. These patients showed a paucity of
movement responses and integration of parts and a lack of origi-
nality on the Rorschach test, and they provided stories that were
short and lacking in elaboration on the Thematic Apperception Test
(TAT). Paul, Schieffer, and Brown (2004), found significant impair-
ments in story logic, social understanding, and common content on
the TAT among five male patients with complete agenesis of the
corpus callosum compared to eight male controls. Brown, Paul,
Symington, and Dietrich (2005) found that individuals with agen-
esis of the corpus callosum have deficits in the comprehension of
narrative humor and concluded that interhemispheric connectivity
is important in understanding second-order meanings of events.
The understanding of second-order meanings might be important
in integrative aspects of creativity.
Electroencephalographic (EEG) coherence studies of healthy
control participants, which measure interhemispheric as well as
intra-hemispheric communication of neuronal networks, have pro-
vided evidence that communication and thus connectivity be-
tween brain areas is important for divergent thinking. For
example, Jausovec and Jausovec (2000b) found that during a pre-
sumably divergent, open-ended task (essay writing), 30 student
teachers (ages 18–19) enrolled in a psychology course showed in-
creased EEG coherence between pairs of electrodes in comparison
to the EEG coherence measured during closed-ended tasks, which
presumably required more convergent thinking. Jausovec (2000)
used the same tasks and grouped individuals as intelligent and/
or creative using the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and TTCT
tests, respectively, and found that creative individuals had more
inter- and intra-hemispheric EEG coherence than those who were
less creative, especially during the essay task. Intelligent individu-
als who were not particularly creative had less coherence than
both creative and average individuals. Overall, these EEG studies
support a relationship between divergent thinking and physiolog-
ical interactions between brain regions, and these interactions
might, at least in part, depend on anatomic connectivity.
Jausovec and Jausovec (2000a), however, found that highly cre-
ative individuals (again classified as ‘‘creative” by high scores on
the TTCT) also had less cooperation between brain regions than
non-creative individuals during the resting state, particularly in
the right hemisphere. One explanation for these seemingly contra-
dictory findings is that the callosum might play both facilitative
and inhibitory roles in interhemispheric cooperation. It may be
that the brains of creative people have greater modularity that al-
lows for hemispheric specialization and, as proposed by Bogen and
Bogen (1988), it is the physiological momentary suspension of this
modularity that accounts for the illumination that is characteristic
of creative innovation.
Heilman (2005) proposed that myelinated axons in the brain
facilitate both inter- and intra-hemispheric communication and
that both types of communication may be important for creativity.
He conjectured that a larger corpus callosum among left-handers
(Witelson, 1985) might facilitate interhemispheric communication
and account for the possible relationship between left-handedness
and creativity. For example, in one study, left-handed participants
scored significantly higher on the figural TTCT than right-handed
participants (Newland, 1981), a finding that could suggest a partic-
ular role of both the right hemisphere and the corpus callosum in
divergent thinking. Extrapolating to both right and left-handers, it
is possible there is a general positive association of atypical hemi-
spheric dominance and divergent-thinking capacity.
There has been much speculation about the relationship be-
tween hemispheric asymmetries (laterality) and divergent or crea-
tive thinking. The right hemisphere has been identified as
dominant for attention in individuals with typical patterns of dom-
inance (Heilman & Van Den Abell, 1980). Gur et al. (1980) found a
higher ratio of white to gray matter in the right hemisphere com-
pared to the left, and Kraus et al. (2007), using diffusion tensor
imaging in normal participants, found higher white matter integ-
rity in the right hemisphere compared to the left. These findings
indicate a greater role of intra-hemispheric connectivity in the
right than left hemisphere. Additionally, investigators have pro-
vided evidence that whereas the left hemisphere mediates focal
attention, the right mediates global attention (Martinez et al.,
1997). Heilman (2005) has also proposed that global attention
might be more important in creative endeavors than is focal atten-
tion, allowing creators to ‘find the thread that unites’. Weinstein
and Graves (2002) studied the relationship between divergent
thinking, measured by the Thurstone Written Fluency Test (TWFT),
and right hemisphere functions. In keeping with this laterality pos-
tulate, they found that the participants with a reduced right ear
advantage in a dichotic listening task, which indicates relatively re-
duced left hemisphere language dominance, had better perfor-
mance on the TWFT.
Creative people might depend heavily on the right hemisphere
during creative innovation, but many creative endeavors require
increased cooperation between hemispheres. Bogen (2000) pro-
posed that the corpus callosum is necessary for transferring earlier
integrative aspects of the creative process, which would include
divergent thinking and would be mediated primarily by the right
hemisphere, to the left hemisphere, which would be essential for
creative output, i.e., verbal and motor output.
While callosal integrity, hemispheric cooperation, handedness,
and cerebral lateralization have all been implicated as factors that
influence creativity, there has been little research that examines
the role of intra-hemispheric white matter pathways. Diamond,
Scheibel, Murphy, and Harvey (1985) calculated neuronal to glial
ratios in the cortical association areas of the superior frontal and
inferior parietal lobes of Einstein’s brain. Compared to 11 brains
of veterans who died of nonneurologically-related diseases, Ein-
stein’s brain showed a significantly smaller neuronal to glial ratio
in the left inferior parietal lobe. Based on this finding, these authors
 D.W. Moore et al. / Brain and Cognition 70 (2009) 267–272
proposed that the inferior parietal lobe is important in imagery and
conceptual thinking, both of which are likely to be important in
creativity. Heilman (2005) speculated that these findings might
have indicated that Einstein had increased brain connectivity,
and this connectivity might have contributed to Einstein’s creativ-
ity. Einstein, however, was also dyslexic, and the region that these
investigators studied has been posited to store orthographic lexical
representations.
In summary, many investigators have proposed that the ability
to generate novel ideas or divergent thinking is an essential com-
ponent of creativity. Studies of patients with callosal resection or
agenesis have revealed a decrement in complex cognitive ability,
potentially related to creativity, and EEG studies suggest an associ-
ation between divergent-thinking tasks and physiological coher-
ence between brain regions. Based on the postulate that
connectivity is critical for divergent thinking, the purpose of this
study was to use structural imaging to examine the relationships
between brain connectivity and visual–spatial divergent thinking.
The corpus callosum (CC) was chosen as a region of interest
(ROI) because of its theoretical implications and the availability
of an existing protocol for measurement, which increases both
the reliability and convenience of measurement. The existing pro-
tocol for CC measurement also includes division of the CC into five
subregions. For the purpose of posthoc analysis in the case of a po-
sitive finding of a relationship between the CC and TTCT scores,
measurement of five CC subregions was performed. Established
protocols also exist for measurement of total white matter volume
(WMV), and since the right hemisphere appears to play a critical
role in creative innovation as well as visual–spatial abilities, right
hemisphere WMV was chosen as a second ROI. It was predicted
that CC area and right WMV but not left WMV would be associated
with the facility for visual–spatial divergent thinking.
2. Method
2.1. Participants
Participants (n = 21) were recruited through Craig’s List and ads
placed in newspapers as part of a larger investigation comparing cog-
nitive and behavioral function between psychiatric participants and
age and gender-matched controls (Gansler et al., 2009), with only
the matched controls reported here. Craig’s List (www.craigslist.com)
is a community moderated website with local classifieds for major cit-
ies around the world and is available to the public largely free of cost.
Because of gender matching to the psychiatric group, this study’s sam-
ple was comprised entirely of males. Participants were between the
ages of 25 and 52 (mean age = 39.81, SD = 8.87), right-handed, and
able to give informed consent. Exclusion criteria were sensory and/
or motor deficits that precluded participation in evaluation proce-
dures, non-English speakers, history or indication of mental retarda-
tion or dementia, contraindication for magenetic resonance imaging
(MRI) (e.g., metal in head, cardiac pacemaker, etc.), major Axis I diag-
nosis, indication on the MRI of neuropathology, history of problems
with aggression, anger, or impulse control, and history of substance
abuse. On average, participants were college educated (mean years
of education = 15.62, SD = 2.36). Table 1 provides information about
the participants’ characteristics. Each participant underwent an in-
formed consent procedure to undergo brain imaging and psychomet-
Table 1
Sample characteristics.
Mean age (SD) 39.81 (8.87)
Age range 25–52
Mean years of education (SD) 15.62 (2.36)
Years of education range 11–21
269
ric evaluation. The study was approved by the Institutional Review
Boards at Tufts Medical Center (TMC), Lemuel Shattuck Hospital
(LSH), and Suffolk University.
2.2. Apparatus and procedures
2.2.1. Assessment of divergent thinking
The figural TTCT (Torrance, 1966) was used to measure divergent
thinking. This test is comprised of three activities in which the par-
ticipant is given shapes or lines and must draw pictures that incor-
porate these shapes and lines. Furthermore, the participants were
instructed that they should try to make their pictures tell a story.
Participants also had to title their drawings, introducing a small ver-
bal component to this task. The streamlined scoring system was
used (Palaniappan & Torrance, 2001), which scores the test perfor-
mance for fluency, originality, elaboration, abstractness of titles, and
resistance to premature closure, all of which contribute to the total in-
dex score. Bonus points also contribute to the index score, which are
given for a number of other creative strengths such as emotional
expressiveness, story-telling articulateness, movement, synthesis
of figures, humor, richness of imagery, and fantasy.
The figural rather than verbal test was used because it was
thought that the verbal TTCT, in contrast to the figural test would
be more confounded by educational background and could involve
more convergent intellectual abilities. This verbal-educational pos-
tulate is supported by the finding that better verbal performance is
associated with higher levels of education (Bornstein, Suga, & Prif-
itera, 1987). In addition, Kershner and Ledger (1985) found that the
originality subscore on the verbal TTCT was significantly correlated
with IQ scores, but none of the figural scores correlated with IQ. In
addition, verbal but not non-verbal creative abilities have been
shown to be influenced by convergent thinking among fifth grade
children (Cristante, 1982). Furthermore, Cooper (1991) argued that
the verbal TTCT relies too heavily on analysis rather than creative
or divergent thinking.
Raw TTCT subscores for the five subscales were converted to
age-normalized standard scores using the technical manual (Tor-
rance, 1998). Total TTCT index scores are calculated by adding
the bonus points to the average of these five subscale standard
scores. Percentile equivalents of total index scores are provided
in the technical manual. The existing normative data for the TTCT
was established predominantly among elementary and high school
students. While there are normative data for adults, they are not
stratified by age or education. For the purpose of this study, the
general reference group of all adults over the age of 18 was used
to calculate total index scores and percentiles, and age and educa-
tion were analyzed as potential confounding variables during data
pre-analyses.
To establish inter-rater reliability, ten participants’ TTCT tests
were scored by two separate raters, the primary investigator and a
trained research assistant, both of whom were unaware (blinded)
of the MRI results. Both raters were trained through careful reading
of the figural TTCT manual. An acceptable level of inter-rater reli-
ability was obtained for scoring of the TTCT (r = .82). In addition, se-
ven TTCT tests were sent in to Scholastic Testing Service (STS),
where a fee-based scoring service is available. The inter-rater reli-
ability coefficient for the primary investigator’s and STS scores
was high (r = .94). The primary investigator scored the remainder
of the tests, and only the primary investigator’s scores were used
in final analyses.
2.2.2. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
Brain MRIs were obtained at TMC. After 17 participants had com-
pleted procedures, a change in scanner availability forced a change in
the MRI protocol. The first 16 participants underwent scans on a 1.5
Tesla superconducting magnet (Siemens, Iselin, NJ) using the follow-
270 D.W. Moore et al. / Brain and Cognition 70 (2009) 267–272
ing scanning protocol: (1) Three-dimensional (3D) magnetization
prepared rapid acquisition gradient-echo (MPRAGE) coronal images
with TR = 11.1 ms, TE = 4.3 ms, slice thickness/interslice gap = 1.5
mm/0 mm, matrix = 256  256, FOV = 25 cm2, flip angle 15°, and
acquisition time of 6 min. (2) Conventional dual echo Proton density
and T2-weighted images with TR = 2230 ms, TE1 = 20 ms, TE2 =
80 ms; field of view = 23 cm2; slice thickness = 5 mm, no gaps;
matrix = 256  256; and acquisition time 6 min 30 s. The subsequent
five participants underwent scans on a 3.0 Tesla superconducting
magnet (Philips, Achieva) using the following scanning protocol:
(1) Three-dimensional (3D) T1-weighted coronal Turbo Field Echo
(TFE) images with TR = 8.1 ms, TE = 3.7 ms, slice thickness/interslice
gap = 1.0 mm/0 mm, matrix = 240  240, FOV = 24 cm2, flip angle 8°,
and acquisition time of 5 min. (2) Conventional dual echo Proton
density and T2-weighted images with TR = 3200 ms, TE1 = 15 ms,
TE2 = 80 ms; field of view = 23 cm2; slice thickness = 4 mm, no gaps;
matrix = 256  256; and acquisition time 6 min.
2.2.3. MRI image analysis
Regions of interest were measured using Analyze 6.0 image
software, developed by the Mayo Clinic Biomedical Imaging Re-
source (Mayo Clinic, 2004), for the CC and WMV. Total WMV was
measured through an automatic thresholding method, previously
described by Chua et al. (2000) and established by those authors
as having good reliability and convergent validity with measure-
ments of phantom MRI. Total intracranial volume (TICV) measure-
ments had been completed with MEDx image analysis software
(Sensor Systems, 2002) as part of Gansler et al.’s (2009) study using
a manually based procedure described by Blatter et al. (1995), ap-
plied to T2 images, and these values were used in the current
study. To prevent introducing confounds due to inter-individual
variation, TICV was used to normalize volumes (Whitwell, Crum,
Watt, & Fox, 2001), and ratios of left WMV to TICV and right
WMV to TICV were used in analyses. WMV values are therefore ex-
pressed as fractions (WMV/TICV).
Total CC area and five subregions were measured using a proce-
dure described by Hampel et al. (1998) in which an outline trace is
made on the mid-sagittal section. First, T1-weighted 3D images
were manually re-oriented in the sagittal plane. Next, the mid-sag-
ittal slice was selected by choosing the slice with minimal white
matter surrounding the CC and where the thalamus appears the
smallest. The CC was traced on the selected slice using the ‘‘auto
trace” thresholding method in which the edge of the callosum is
detected and then followed. In some cases, the tracing needed to
be edited manually to exclude the fornix. Next, the CC was divided
into five subregions using a radial divider composed of ten equally
spaced rays. The center of the divider was placed over the midpoint
of the lower side of a rectangle surrounding the CC, which was cre-
ated using the ‘‘minimal enclosing rectangle” function. The upper
arms of the radial divider divided the CC into five subregions. In-
ter-rater reliability was established for total CC area (r = .98) and
on the five subregions (r ranged from .89 to .99) on six brains mea-
sured by two independent raters, the primary investigator and a
research assistant. The primary investigator’s values were used in
final analyses, and the primary investigator completed the rest of
the CC tracings. During all tracings, both raters were unaware
(blinded) of all participants’ identifying information and TTCT
scores. To prevent introducing confounds due to inter-individual
variation and to isolate the CC from total WMV, the ratio of CC size
to total WMV was used in analyses, and CC values are therefore ex-
pressed as fractions (CC/WMV).
2.3. Data analysis
T-tests were conducted to determine whether scan protocol ef-
fected ROI measurements. Descriptive statistics were used to iden-
tify outliers and normality of distributions for variables of interest.
Correlation matrices were examined to determine if age or educa-
tion were related to variables of interest, and bivariate Pearson cor-
relations were used to test hypotheses. For significant relationships
that were found between TTCT total index scores and ROIs, corre-
lations were conducted posthoc between these ROIs and TTCT sub-
scores to determine possible differences in contributions of the
various subscores. Following a finding of a significant relationship
between CC/WMV area and TTCT total scores, posthoc analyses
were conducted examining the relationship between CC/WMV
subregions and TTCT total scores.
3. Results
T-tests comparing ROI values between the two scanner proto-
cols showed no significant differences or trends for differences.
Thus, change in scanning protocol was not considered a confound-
ing variable. There were no outliers with z-scores with an absolute
value greater than or equal to three on any variables of interest. All
variables met criteria for normality of distribution, with skewness
and kurtosis falling between 2 and +2, and the Kolmogorov–
Smirnov statistic was nonsignificant for all variables of interest,
indicating that the data was normally distributed. See Table 2 for
descriptive data for variables of interest. The mean TTCT total in-
dex score was 113, which falls at the 55th percentile, with a range
of 83 (5%ile)–133 (91%ile) and a standard deviation of 12.
A correlation matrix was created to examine the potential con-
founding variables of age and education. TTCT scores did not corre-
late significantly with age (r = .07, p = .776) or education (r = .20,
p = .384), so analyses were conducted without covarying for these
variables. TTCT scores did not correlate with TICV (r = .002,
p = .992).
Table 3 shows the correlations between ROIs and TTCT scores.
There was no relationship between TTCT scores and WMV/TICV
in the right (r = .27, p = .235) or left (r = .15, p = .527) hemispheres.
There was, however, a significant, moderate negative correlation
between TTCT scores and the CC/WMV size, (r = .45, p = .042).
To analyze for possible differences in contributions of the five
subregions of the CC, correlations between TTCT total index scores
and ratios of CC subregions to WMV were conducted. TTCT scores
showed a significant relationship only with the most posterior CC/
WMV segment (r = .49, p = .026). To examine the contributions of
the various TTCT subscores, correlations were conducted between
CC/WMV and standard scores of the five subscales of the TTCT. The
CC/WMV showed a significant relationship only with the resis-
tance to premature closure subscore (r = .47, p = .030). After Bon-
ferroni correction for multiple comparisons, however, which sets
Table 2
Descriptive data for variables of interest.
Mean SD Range
TTCT total index scores 113 12 83–133
Left WMV (cm3) 278 42 196–359
Right WMV (cm3) 271 42 206–342
CC area (cm2) 6.53 .9 5.32–8.83
Table 3
Correlations between TTCT scores and ROIs.
Right WMV/TICV Left WMV/TICV CC/WMV
TTCT total index scores .27 .15 .45*
*
p < .05, Two-tail.
 D.W. Moore et al. / Brain and Cognition 70 (2009) 267–272
the new critical alpha level at .005, neither of these posthoc find-
ings is significant.
4. Discussion
The results of this study provide evidence for the relationship
between visual–spatial divergent thinking and the size of the CC,
but not the WMV of the right hemisphere. It was demonstrated
that smaller CC size in ratio to total WMV is associated with higher
divergent-thinking scores. Furthermore, while posthoc analyses
showed that the posterior CC was the only subregion to correlate
significantly with divergent-thinking scores and that only the
resistance to premature closure subscore correlates significantly
with CC size, these findings did not survive experiment-wise error
correction.
The interpretation of this finding to some extent is contingent
upon further development of our understanding of the relationship
between white matter morphology and cognitive function in
healthy individuals. Certainly, the reduction–demyelination and/
or infection–destruction of white matter is understood as the path-
ological basis for multiple sclerosis and HIV-associated dementia
(Compston & Coles, 2002; Jarvik et al., 1988; Noseworthy, Lucchi-
netti, Rodriguez, & Weinshenker, 2000), but the meaning of WMV
in both normal functioning individuals and those with putative
neuro-developmental disorders is not well understood.
Some research supports the idea that in certain cases smaller
WMV may indicate enhanced functioning, and larger volumes
could represent aberrant development with impaired cognitive
functioning. For example, many children with autism have in-
creased volume, or overgrowth, of white matter (Bashat et al.,
2007; Bloss & Courchesne, 2007) possibly as a failure of proper
pruning. Nagel et al. (2006) found that prefrontal white matter vol-
umes normally decrease during late adolescence as part of a pre-
sumed healthy/normal developmental pruning process. It may be
that smaller WMV is indicative of more successful pruning during
development, which might be associated with enhanced brain
organization through either increased efficiency of connections or
through reduced connectivity allowing for more modular organiza-
tion. Thus, reduced CC size may enhance divergent thinking
through a reduction in hemispheric connectivity that allows the
hemispheres to function more independently and perhaps more
efficiently. Alternatively, this reduction in CC size may be indica-
tive of more selective pruning of pathways leading to stronger
and more efficient connectivity.
Other research, however, has suggested that increased rather
than decreased CC size is associated with faster information pro-
cessing and better cognitive performance. For example, Jäncke
and Steinmetz (1994) found that CC size was negatively correlated
with hand reaction time in response to auditory stimuli. Hines,
Chiu, McAdams, Bentler, and Lipcamon (1992) found that verbal
fluency was positively correlated with the size of the splenium of
the CC. It has also been demonstrated that WMV correlates with
higher performance on a test of visual retention (Allen, Tranel,
Bruss, & Damasio, 2006).
Hines et al. (1992) also found that language laterality was inver-
sely related to the size of the CC. Further evidence that increased
CC size is associated with reduced laterality of brain function
comes from the studies of Morton and Rafto (2006) and Yazgan,
Wexler, Kinsbourne, Peterson, and Leckman (1995) who, using
dichotic listening to examine laterality of function, demonstrated
that the participants with less lateralized brains have larger corpus
callosa. From the phylogenetic perspective, Hopkins and Rilling
(2000) found that among different primate groups, including hu-
mans, as laterality increases across species, CC size in proportion
to total brain volume decreases. Finally Bloom and Hynd (2005)
271
concluded that the role of the CC in interhemispheric transfer
seems to be predominantly excitatory, i.e. larger size indicates less
laterality in function and reduced connectivity leads to enhanced
modular organization. Thus, reduced connectivity that allows the
hemispheres to operate more independently might enhance a
number of cognitive abilities including divergent thinking.
Heilman, Nadeau, and Beversdorf (2003) suggested that crea-
tive acts likely require the integration of different forms of knowl-
edge stored in independent cortical modules that have not been
previously associated, and a smaller CC might allow the develop-
ment of independent modular networks that store different forms
of knowledge. The lateralized processing of the different forms and
types of knowledge stored in the right and left hemispheres may be
particularly important during incubation and generation of ideas
(divergent thinking). While the binding of the lateralized cognitive
modules would require interhemispheric communication, a large
CC might not be required for this interhemispheric binding. The
coherence observed on EEG during creative endeavors may be
influenced by other physiological or neurochemical-transmitter
factors, and as suggested by Bogen and Bogen (1988), it may be
the momentary suspension of this hemispheric modularity that ac-
counts for the illumination that is characteristic of creativity.
While much of the evidence seems to indicate that greater CC
size is associated with increased interhemispheric connectivity,
the possibility exists that reduced size is actually indicative of
more efficient connectivity. This explanation would be consistent
with the hypothesis that divergent thinking is associated with in-
creased interhemispheric connectivity. Further research using
techniques that can provide information about the nature of white
matter connections, such as diffusion tensor imaging, will help to
explain the mechanism by which a smaller CC may enhance diver-
gent thinking. It is also important to note that as the figural TTCT is
a predominantly visual–spatial task, interhemispheric connectivity
may impact TTCT performance by affecting visuo-motor abilities,
so divergent-thinking abilities cannot be entirely separated from
visuo-motor abilities in this study.
Gazzaniga (2005) maintains that a combination of split-brain
research, diffusion tensor imaging, and functional neuroimaging
will advance our understanding of the regional-specificity of the
CC. While posthoc analyses for the influence that size of different
regions of the CC might have on the divergent-thinking component
of creativity revealed no significance after correcting for multiple
comparisons, future studies with larger samples, including women
and men, as well as more advanced imaging techniques might be
able to identify a role of specific CC regions in divergent and crea-
tive thinking. Methods such as diffusion tensor imaging (Le Bihan
et al., 2001) and the brain-wise method of voxel-based morphom-
etry (Ashburner & Friston, 2000) will be useful in examining the
role of more regional-specific white matter pathway integrity in
divergent and creative thinking. For example, white matter con-
nections underlying the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in
executive functioning and higher order thinking, and the parietal
lobe, important in visual imagery and the forming of associations,
would be relevant areas to target.
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