There’s a very popular myth amongst pop-psychology communities of understanding that there are types of people who use different sides of their brain more often and in a more apt capacity than the other side. This understanding of the human brain is a fundamental misconception of developments in psychology and neuroscience, and is little more than an over-simplified construction that has turned into not much more than a gimmick on Facebook. The concept of being someone who is more accustomed to “creative” forms of thinking as opposed to “objective” ones has little basis in the scientific method, especially as Studies support the idea of all areas of the brain working in coordination to achieve a task regardless of what the task asked of the human brain. Though different areas of the brain may show higher or more intense activity with different areas of thinking, the idea of having a dominant side of the brain like a dominant hand is not exactly a no-brainer.

The idea of this dominance stems from the theory of lateralization of brain-function, with the left side of the brain predisposed to objective analysis, language, and more “solid-state” information that is adaptable, whereas the right-brain is more conceptually based for comprehension and spatial information. Scientist and Nobel laureate Roger W. Sperry discovered more about the conjunction of the brain’s hemispheres by attempting to eliminate seizures in patients. The corpus callosum is the segment of the brain that joins the two hemispheres, and that cutting this section would eliminate these seizures. However, the misunderstanding occurred from the observation that Sperry wrongly associated his patients’ lack of ability to name objects as the “severed connection” of information between the hemispheres. In a study consisting of 60 right-handed males of varying age from 14-20, they asked the subjects to complete a variety of tasks that challenged left-and-right visual comprehension, which showed that the “mathematically gifted” students had completed the laterally-concerned tests slower than the “average” students, yet when the tasks became more comprehensive and “asked” both sides of the brain, comprehension was much quicker. However, I believe this study suffers from generalization, as exclusively males were picked from the premise that males are more adept at math based on findings from other studies, which leaves variables unaccounted for in gender, age and level of ability. One thing is clear, however, that the idea of the brain being exclusively dichotomous is rather unfounded.

So, in short, the brain works together to accomplish all tasks it is presented with. Though studies can attempt to evaluate and confirm biases about how the brain is assumed to work, varying levels of activity can be seen depending on the task, and understandably so. However, the face-value assessment of how well a math student can solve problems based on SAT scores is only an incomplete concept of how brain activity works in conjunction with both objective and creative areas of processing information and learning.

This is a rather simple yet inaccurate understanding of the brain, and it limits the human understanding of how people can learn!

http://rense.com/general2/rb.htm

http://www.livescience.com/39373-left-brain-right-brain-myth.html

http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/neu-182371.pdf

http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/a/left-brain-right-brain.htm

http://healthcare.utah.edu/publicaffairs/news/current/08-14-2013_brain_personality_traits.php