Thursday, May 5, 2011

I Must Ask . . . Right or Left? {part 3}

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins. –Benjamin Franklin

I really enjoyed hearing from you all last week on the question of whether your ears, eyes and feet are left or right dominant. Your comments were so fun and I loved learning a bit more about each of you. Here are the results:

{Which do you see?
Is it an old woman's profile or
a young woman whose face is turned away?}
As I was browsing the internet for information about dominance or preference for hands, feet, eyes and ears, I inevitably ran across information about being left or right brained. Some of you even talked about it in your comments. In a nutshell here is what it means to be right or left-brain dominant.

If you are right-brain dominant, it is your intuitive, emotional right hemisphere that guides the decisions you make throughout the day.

If you are left-brain dominant, it is your sequential, time-oriented left hemisphere which tells you how to think, what to believe, and what choices to make.

Those who are middle-brain dominant tend to be more flexible than either the left or the right-brain folks; however, you often vacillate between the two hemispheres when you make decisions. You sometimes get confused when decisions need to be made because, neurologically speaking, you could do most tasks through either a left-brain or a right-brain method!

The picture of the two women above is supposed to tell you if you are right or left-brained. I think the first time I saw it was in 4th or 5th grade and I always see the old woman first. Really, this drawing is just an optical illusion and has nothing to do with determining which side of the brain is dominant, but I found this colored version of it and wanted to share because this picture really fascinates me.

Another optical illusion which is supposed to tell you at a glance which side of the brain is dominant is this spinning girl. If she is spinning clockwise, it is supposed to mean you are more right-brained. If she is spinning counter-clockwise, it is supposed to mean you are more left-brained.


Steven Novella at NeuroLogica Blog had this to say about the spinning woman.

Sure, we have two hemispheres that operate fine independently and have different abilities, but they are massively interconnected and work together as a seamless whole (providing you have never had surgery to cut your corpus callosum).

We also do have hemispheric dominance, but that determines mostly your handedness and the probability of language being on the right or the left. There is also often asymmetry for memory, with some being right or left hemisphere dominant. But none of this means that your personality or abilities are more right brain or left brain.

Further, how your visual cortex constructs this optical illusion says nothing about your hemispheric dominance, and is absolutely not a quick personality profile.

There was another article somewhere that I can't find again expressing similar sentiments. But this is all in good fun and so today I must ask: are you right-brain or left-brain dominant or both? There are several on-line quizzes that you can take which help you to discover if you are left or right-brained. I took several and liked this one best. But a quick Google search will help you find others.

Different tests gave me different results and even taking the same test twice gave different results. I'm beginning to think this is not an exact science :lol:. Maybe there is something to what Steven Novella and others have said about the brain being complexly interconnected.

What I find interesting is that we pretty much all have the same equipment but each of us is unique and individual in how we use that equipment, how we view the world and how we respond to it.

12 comments:

Quiet Quilter said...

I am right-brained, the girl is definitely spinning clockwise, and I saw the young face first. I was able to see the older face faster than I could see the girl turning counter-clockwise. Am off to check the test, but I think I know what the answer there will be.

Good subject....

Impera Magna said...

I see the young woman first... but that spinning woman changes directions on me... *lol* ...first counter clock-wise, then clock-wise...

BTW, the corpus callosum is larger in females who are thus able to use both sides of their brains more easily than the males of the species!

Paulette said...

I cannot make myself see the girl spinning clockwise, only counter-clockwise.

I took the test in your link. I am 59% left brain, 41% right brain. My dominant left brain characteristic is Linear, and my dominant right brain characteristic is Random. Uh...I think you can tell this from my blog!

Jennifer Lovell said...

that spinning girl is driving me nuts. I remember seeing a similar spinning image once (a rabbit?) and I could get it to spin both ways, but this girl I can only get to spin clockwise, not counter-clockwise. Maybe my brain has changed? Hmmmm...
I agree that it mustn't be an exact science, but I'll probably be hard-pressed to find anything that tells me I'm anything but right-brained.

Anonymous said...

It was hard for me to see the old woman's face and to see the girl spinning clockwise. It took time, but I eventually saw them. I took the test and it came out that I was left-brained. I'm glad to see that I have at least one side of it today.
cindy

Shay said...

Im definitely left brained- I dont even need to take the test.

I think our individual differences and how we process information and perceive situations so differently is fascinating!

Angie said...

I can only see the girl spin clockwise (maybe if I were in Australia she would spin the other way-lol). But I see both women and the same time. Must mean I'm a freak...but we didn't need a test for that!

Jill said...

I guess I'm both! My score was 51% left and 49% right. Funny.
I couldn't see her go counter clock wise until I was reading something above her and then my peripheral vision saw the change. While I was staring at it, trying to make the change, I couldn't figure out how she'd go counter clockwise. Her leg was clearly on the right! But somehow it switched so there we go.
Funny, we have a video game that checks right vs left and it said I'm more right. Go figure.

Michelle said...

I came out 60% left brained and 40% right brained, with linear being my dominant left brained characteristic and intuitive being my dominant right brained characteristic.

Interesting blog post and test. Thanks!

Michelle said...

Oh, and I can see only the old woman, and the skater only spinning clockwise.

mom said...

Oh I can only see the young woman tonight. But I saw the girl spinning clockwise and when I looked at the clock to see if it was clockwise then looked back she was spinning counter-clockwise and then back and forth! I'm not sure I have much brain on either side.

Ivory Spring said...

I think I am left..... ;)