Aesthetic judgement and appreciation in agenesis of the corpus callosum

The corpus callosum has been associated with some of the most complex processes of cognition, including creativity and imagination. Agenesis of the corpus callosum (ACC) is a congenital disorder, affecting approximately 1:4000 persons, in which the corpus callosum fails to develop. Even when FSIQ is in the average range, ACC results in a characteristic neuropsychological syndrome of reduced interhemispheric transfer of sensory-motor information, reduced cognitive processing speed, difficulties in complex reasoning and novel problem-solving, and reduced elaborative imagination and creative capacity. To further investigate the role of the corpus callosum in elaborative imagination, the present study compared aesthetic judgments from 22 adults with ACC (FSIQ >80) and 49 online comparison participants, as measured on the Assessment of Art Attributes (AAA). Participants viewed 24 paintings from the AAA, rating them on six sensory-perceptual attributes and eight higher-order conceptual attributes of visual art. All participants also completed measures of artistic experience and colorblindness. Compared to the control group, persons with ACC produced divergent rank orders for 13 of the 14 AAA attributes, but group mean differences were only observed across higher-level, conceptual attributes of art. These findings are broadly consistent with a previously reported pattern of greater impairment in judgments of conceptual aesthetics than sensory-perceptual features among populations with neuropsychological deficits, while revealing a more generalized qualitative difference in how people with ACC judge aesthetic attributes in works of art and lending further support for the role of the corpus callosum in imagination, creativity, and aesthetic appreciation.