How do “left brained” and “right brained” minds work? Is it even real?
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Not really a thing. It’s right up there with personality tests (at least ones like Myers-Briggs) and “learning styles.” There’s some scientific basis for the myths/misunderstandings, but overall they are just not useful. The left or right hemisphere do have certain specialties, but there isn’t as clear a distinction between math vs language brained as people like to portray, often as an excuse for their own shortcomings. eg: “I can’t understand math because I’m left-brained.”
edit: specified the test I was thinking of
Uncertain if videos are allowed but [Science Unbound](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1_UW-gD1jQ) made a good bitesize video on it quite recently, the experiments mentioned with how it can mess with communication between hemispheres if severing the corpus callosum were genuinely mind blowing to me.
TLDR the talk about having dominant sides or personalities being based on hemispheres is more or less bs, however there are certain functions that are located in specific hemispheres.
The left hemisphere of the brain controls information processing and logic, and the right side of the brain controls things like creativity and expression. The thing is, neither side can function properly without the other side. Saying that somebody is Left Brain versus right brain is more of a figure of speech than an actual scientific truth.
Somebody described as left brain is somebody who tends to apply more logic and reasoning skills than emotion or creativity to problems and life in general, and describing somebody as right brain means that they tend to lean more into the creative and expressive side of things when making decisions.
Yes and no.
You can physically disconnect the left and right brain while still being alive and well. However, one brain has control of the mouth and the other doesn’t. Which means these two brains can’t communicate anymore.
This isn’t PROVEN, but studies have shown that the two sides of the body (controlled by one half of the brain) can disagree on things in this example.
The right side has parts that control some things, the left others. When the two are connected they communicate as a whole.
Could you have skills that are favored by one half of your brain? Sure. Could you be exceptional at every aspect of a brain’s grey matter on the right side and terrible at anything on the left? I don’t see why not! But these would be a coincidence, not a valid way to group people, given the unlikely nature of such a profound one sidedness.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_His_Emissary
It’s a fascinating book on the subject.
Polymath, neuroscientist/psychiatrist Ian McGilchrist wrote a great book on this, “The master and the emissary” about the left and right brain hemispheres.
Definitely worth a read. Interviews also on YouTube
It’s real in the sense that we do actually house two pseudo-consciousnesses in our brains, one that handles communication and most actions and one that handles logical thinking and just kinda goes with the flow, since it can’t communicate.
Neither one is “dominant” though. People aren’t “right brained or left brained.” You use your whole brain, all the time.
You can search up “you are two cgp grey” for a lovely video on the subject.
If you want to tidy stuff up and organise things then your left-hand side of the brain is leading, if you want to get drunk and impregnate things then it’s your right-hand side.
The right/left thing is bunk but there is def a bifurcation in society between these two generalized groups.
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