Brain Sides Essay, Research Paper

The human brain is a miraculous organ. It regulates thought, memory, judgment,

personal identity, and other aspects of what is commonly called mind. It also

regulates aspects of the body including body temperature, blood pressure, and

the activity of internal organs to help the body respond to its environment and

to maintain the body’s health. In fact, the brain is considered so central to

human well-being and survival that the death of the brain is considered in many

parts of the world to be equal legally to the death of the person. In the past

fifteen years or so there has been a lot of talk of left brain and right brain

people. Clearly their are misconceptions and truths about how our brain

hemispheres operate. First of all the myth of the left brain and right brain

theory. This states that generally people see the left hemisphere of the brain

controlling logic and language and the right, creativity and intuition. In

addition people differ in their styles of thought, depending on which half of

the brain is dominant. Some people believe that most of what these notions state

is farce. Next the article explores the history of this fascination of the left

and right hemispheres of the brain.. It wasn’t until 1962 when Roger W. Sperry

began experimenting on certain aspects of the brain that contribute to the truth

of the left and right brain theory. Sperry studied people who had undergone

surgical division of the corpus callosum, the bridge between the two

hemispheres. His studies showed that, "an object placed in the right hand

(left hemisphere) could be named readily, but one placed in the left hand

(nonverbal right hemisphere) could be neither named nor described. Doreen

Kimura. Kimura developed behavioral methods which involved presenting visual

stimuli rapidly to either the left or right visual fields. Another important

method developed was "dichotic listening" which centered around the

use of sound to study the hemispheres. Through these tests and the continual

study the theory that the left brain controlled ended. Instead a new theory was

born known as the two-brain theory. This said that at different times one of the

two hemispheres would be operating. An example of this is that the right

hemisphere is in control when an artist paints but the left hemisphere was in

control when a novelist wrote a book. This theory failed because of one physical

studies showed that people with hemispheres surgically disconnected could

operate in everyday life. Also, research demonstrated that each hemisphere had

its own functional expertise, and that the two halves were complementary. There

are five pionts two each hemisphere. 1. The two hemispheres are so similar that

when they are disconnected by split-brain surgery, each can function remarkably

well, although quite imperfectly 2. Although they are remarkably similar they

are also different. The differences are seen in contrasting contributions. Each

hemisphere contributes something to every action a person takes. 3. Logic is not

confined to the left hemisphere. Although dominant in the left logic is present

in the right hemisphere. 4. There is no evidence that either creativity or

intuition is an exclusive property of the right hemisphere. 5. Since the two

hemispheres do not function independently, and since each hemisphere contributes

its special capacities to all cognitive activities, it is quite impossible to

educate one hemisphere at a time in a normal brain. Through my research I came

to the conclusion that people are not purely left or right brained. There is a

continuum in which the hemispheres work together in harmony. Often the left or

right hemisphere is more active in some people but it is never the sole

operator. "We have a single brain that generates a single mental

self." , but merely somewhere on the scale between left and right brain.

Some of us are extreme left, few extreme right and most in the middle leaning

left a bit (this is where I fell).