Left Brain vs Right Brain
Are we
really Right Brained or Left Brained?
A time-old
way of categorizing someone’s personality is to determine whether that
individual is “right-brained” or
left-brained” — right-brained people are thought to be more spontaneous, creative, and artistic,
while left-brainers are associated with being more logical, detail-oriented, analytical. Too bad it's not true.
So where
did this whole left brain vs. right brain idea start? It was born back in the
60s when a Nobel Prize-winning neuro-psychologist named Roger Sperry cut the
hemisphere-connecting brain fibers in a number of epilepsy patients to reduce
their seizures. Then he decided to run
an experiment to compare how the right and left hemispheres processed
information differently, and his study marked the beginning of the right-brain left-brain myth that would persist
through the years.
Trouble is,
science never really supported this
notion after that. More recently, brain scan technology has revealed that
the hemispheres' roles are not quite as
cut-and-dried as once thought. The two hemispheres are in fact highly complementary. For example,
language processing, once believed to be left- hemisphere-only, is now
understood to take place in both hemispheres: the left side processes grammar
and pronunciation while the right processes intonation.
"I'm
disappointed with some aspects of civilization," Neil deGrasse Tyson explained in a video interview
with Fast Company. "One is our unending urge to bypass subtlety of
character, thought, and expression and just categorize people.” He says to
refrain from labeling him as “right-brained” or “left-brained” — Tyson is just “brained” like all of us.
What remains
true is that the right side of the brain
controls the left side of the body and vice versa. What this means is that
an injury to the left side of the brain (such as a left-hemisphere stroke) can
cause damage to the other side of the body (such as right-leg paralysis).
Debunked!
Source:
P.S. - If you have any urban legend or superstition that you are doubtful of, just comment it and I will try to debunk that.
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