Hemispheres Of Brain – Are You Right Or Left-Brained?
The hemispheres of brain handle slightly different functions. We often refer to ourselves as “right-brained” or “left-brained.” What this means is that you have a tendency toward certain functions of one of the hemispheres of brain. It’s actually a little more complicated than this, but to get started, let’s look at the specialized functions of both hemispheres of brain.
The Left Hemisphere – Logic, Language, And Time
In general, the left hemisphere handles logic and analytical tasks. It deals with time and your ability to put things into a sequence. The left side looks at the component parts of things rather than at the whole. It’s also active in many language skills including recognizing words, letters, and numbers.
The Right Hemisphere – Creativity, Music, And Color
The right hemisphere seems to deal more with creativity. This is the side that recognizes patterns, colors, and images. Rather than temporal tasks, the right hemisphere processes spatial ones. In addition to images, it also is responsible for tasks involving music.
Where the left hemisphere sees component parts, the right brain sees the whole picture. It’s responsible for understanding context, which is also used in language communication. It recognizes faces, places, and objects.
Which Are You – Left Or Right?
Now that we’ve seen in general what the different hemispheres of the brain handle, can you get a sense of which category you fall into? Of course, the truth is that this explanation is a bit simplistic. Scientific research has shown that both hemispheres of brain are involved in most tasks.
The main difference appears to be that the right brain sees the whole picture while the left brain sees the individual particulars. To speak, think, play music, recognize things or keep time are all things that actually require a number of different tasks. These tasks are processed in different parts of the brain.
Hemispheres Of Brain And Muscle Control
However, it has been found that the hemispheres of brain do influence whether you’re right or left-handed. The hemispheres of brain control the muscles of the other side. They also process sensory information from the other side. The right side controls the muscles of the left side of your body and vice versa. This is why people who have strokes in one of the hemispheres of brain often experience paralysis in the other side. In most right-handed people, the left hemisphere is dominant; and in most left-handed people, the right is dominant.
Even though there’s not a lot of scientific evidence about the hemispheres of brain to support this, it’s still fun and convenient to think of people as being either “right-brained” or “left-brained.” There are definitely some people who seem ruled by one of the hemispheres of brain and not both!
