By Philip J. Carter

Because they are such diverse and wide ranging subjects, it is difficult to measure both artistic flair and appreciation of the arts, and creativity.

The subject of both laterality and creativity have been explored in more depth in the Brain Zone of my own web site The Enigmatic World of Philip Carter; as well as the fact that the human brain consists of two identical hemispheres, and that it is the right side of these hemispheres which controls spatial ability, artistic appreciation and creative thought.

Because it is so unpressured and uncluttered, it is in a young child that the mind is at its most creative, as the child instinctively uses both hemispheres of the brain, and learns an enormous amount of information and skills during these early years, without formal training. This rapid development can, however, slow down when the child reaches the education system, which generally concentrates on the left side of the brain. Thus, by the time the child has reached early adulthood the creative right hemisphere has been taken over by the more dominant left hemisphere; the hemisphere that controls language, order, sequence and logic, simply because it was not given enough opportunity to function.

Educationalists, therefore, have a duty to encourage creative and artistic talents in all young people. However, this is not always the case. In todays world of specialisation many of these early talents are stifled and energies are channelled into one specific career, with the result that many latent talents remain underdeveloped.

As we all have a right side to our brain we all have the potential to be creative and artistic. Until we try we never really know what we can achieve.

The above text, for which I retain copyright, is extracted from one of my forthcoming books More Psychometric Testing (ISBN: 0-470-85039-6) due for publication in Spring 2003 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.