Literally, the night before our Psych 100 lecture on observational learning, I was heckling my boyfriend about why in the world he gets so excited about a silly March Madness basketball game. Mind you this was after he jumped up, clapped a strong loud clap, and woo’d at the top of his lungs. Now I don’t hate watching sports like some girls, but I could never imagine reacting that way to anything sports related. He, of course, responding to my questioning with, “I don’t know, I can’t help it. I just get so excited.” I simply just dismissed the situation after that since I was only picking on him anyway. Little did I know, the next afternoon I would have the answer to my questions. The culprits for such reactions are mirror neurons. Mirror neurons were first found to exist by neuroscientists studying motor neuron activity in a monkey’s brain while the monkey picked up a peanut. As a fluke, they discovered mirror neurons. As a scientist picked up a peanut in front of the observing monkey, they found that the monkey’s brain fired as if he picked up the peanut himself!

In order for mirror neurons to actually create a response the observer must meet four requirements. They must first notice the action and then remember it. Consequentially they also must have the ability to imitate the action (mentally and physically) and must desire to take part in the action. So that explains it, my boyfriend loves playing sports, and he would choose to actually play every day of the week rather than watch it on television. I next started to wonder how mirror neurons impact my life in a significant way, and I realized mirror neurons affect me when I am watching a sappy movie. I always cry at the sad parts, even though I know that it is ridiculous. I have the desire and the ability to have a true love, family, or even a dying dog, and this allows my mirror neurons to run my emotions rampant.

The memory I consider “my first true memory” is when is was between the ages of 5 and 6. My sister and I were enjoying Big Red gum together in the den of my house. I was holding onto the the pack of gum when my sister said to give her the pack because she had to go to the bathroom. She requested this because I had a been known to frequently swallow my gum. But I replied to her, “No Lindy, I promise I won’t swallow it. I promise.” So she left the pack of gum, and I proceeded to chew and swallow the three remaining sticks.

Before last week in Psych 100, I would have sworn that memory to be real and truly from the specific event. Studies have shown that after 3.5 years of age, it is feasible to create memories. So I am safe in that aspect. However, am I remembering the event, or am I remembering a story? If I am in fact remembering the event itself, am I adding details each time I recall? The truth is, there is no way to precisely answer these questions.

If it is a memory from the event, there is a high chance that the story I tell today has been subject to the misinformation effect. That is each time I recall the memory, which has been quite a few times actually, the setting and circumstances I am under are potentially affecting how I will recall my memory the next time I tell it. As an example, maybe one of the first times I told the story, I was chewing Big Red. So from then on, I am now filling in the type of gum it was with Big Red where before I may have simply just said gum. I also could be subject to the source amnesia effect, in which my memory was actually formed from a story that I was told, probably from my sister. It really is impossible to prove whether the memory I have is from my sister’s or parent’s story or if it comes from the event itself. The source amnesia effect is actually very strong. Repeating a story as if it is your own memory is fairly easy to understand why and how this phenomenon occurs. However, there are much more interesting cases that occur when it comes to false memories. Studies have been conducted where a person will talk with another about several events that have occurred and that they mutually remember, but the conversation will also contain one memory that has never actually happened to the test subject, but is presented as if it had. At first, the test subject will not remember the event (since it never really happened), but when the test subject is brought back in for further questioning a few days later, he or she will have created a throughly detailed report of this false memory. What happens is called memory construction. The test subject’s mind is presented with what is to be believed as an event that occurred to him or her, so the test subject’s mind just starts filling in the gaps with details that seem very reasonable. And so it becomes a memory, a memory that your brain literally just made up. While this is an extreme case of memory construction, it happens at a smaller level all the time. Like the example I gave with chewing Big Red as I told the story, my mind could just fill in the unknown information of gum flavor with that of Big Red.

So all memories are just a construct of real and imagined, stories and events, and no one will know for sure where or how they got that memory.

It is very likely that in someone’s lifetime they will be posed with the question, “So, do you think you are left-brain or right-brain dominant?” I certainly have, and on multiple occasions. However, I had no idea how to answer the question. The brain is composed of a left hemisphere and a right hemisphere, which are connected by and interact through the corpus callosum. The left hemisphere is said to control mathematical calculations, language, and logical thought whereas the right hemisphere is said to control visual perception, emotional thought, and pattern and facial recognition. A lot of people simply rely on handedness to confirm left- vs. right-brain dominance, such as if you are right handed then you are left-brain dominant.

Although this is an on-going question, I tend to agree with the opinion that it is not as simple as left vs. right. When I study the list of specializations between left and right hemispheres, I associate with many points from both sides. First, I am right handed, which from the handedness perspective would say I am left-brain dominant. The fact that I am good with calculations and logic agrees with this conclusion. However, I also am very strong with pattern and facial recognition (right-brain dominance). If I saw someone from my freshman seminar ten years later, I can almost guarantee that after some thought I could come up with how and why I recognize them.

To add to this complicated question, last semester, I was presented with the dancing ballerina (link at bottom). The direction in which you see the ballerina dancing is supposed to determine your hemisphere dominance. If she is dancing clockwise you are right side dominance, counterclockwise is left side, and if you see her going both ways the sides are equally dominant. I thought, “Ah ha. This will prove that I must be equally dominant.” Not exactly. I would see 5 clockwise, then 15 counterclockwise and so on with no sense of a logical pattern.

So even though this fun and interesting question will still continue to be posed by your peers, I am in agreement with Michael Gazzaniga from the textbook who stated, “People are not really left- or right-brained, they are whole-brained.”¹ For me, there is no physical or personal proof that these simplistic characterizations can distinguish left- vs. right-brain dominance.

Ballerina link:  http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/right-brain-v-left-brain/story-e6frf7jo-1111114603615)²

¹ Ciccarelli, Saundra K., and J. Noland White. Psychology. 3rd. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc., 2012. 78-79. Print.

² “Right Brain v Left Brain.” Herald Sun News. News Ltd, 9 Oct. 2007. Web. 1 Feb 2014. <http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/right-brain-v-left-brain/story-e6frf7jo-1111114603615>.