Right Brain vs Left Brain Dominant: What Does it Mean?

Here’s the thing. Many popular beliefs about the brain — whether floating on the internet or those fun facts that you heard from your buddy — are merely myths.

These myths — known as pop psychology — have been around and propagated for so long that everyone believes it to be true.

Here, let’s take a quick test.

Can you guess which of the following are myths and which are the facts?

• We use only 10% of our brain.
• Drinking alcohol kills brain cells.
• Each child has a distinct learning style.
• People are left- or right-brained.

So which are the facts?

Well — none of them.

Yes, you heard that right. Not even one of those theories is true.

Even the popular concept of having a dominant brain side —  right or left-brain dominant — is just an urban legend. A myth. A fable.

Here’s all you need to know about it.

Pop Psychology of Being Right or Left-Brain Dominant

As per the popular belief, each hemisphere of your brain controls different functions and is responsible for a type of thinking. The left side responsible for logical and analytical thinking while the right side responsible for creative and intuitive.

Also, people and their cognitive style and even behaviour can be categorized on the basis of this. Being a left-brain dominant would make you good at math or being a right-brain dominant at art.

All these may sound ideal. But it’s far from the truth.

And if you are wondering about the tests on the internet that determines whether you are a right or left brain dominant — based on questions like your favourite subject or sports — well, even those tests are useless.

So Where Did The Notion of Right or Left Brain Dominant Come From?

Just like many psychological theories, the idea of right and left brain escaped from scientific research into popular culture to create a whole different meaning. And this theory is believed to be originated from the split-brain experiments in the 1950s. Let’s understand.

The notion of left and right brain first appeared in the 1950s while treating the patients suffering from epilepsy, a neurological disorder that causes uncontrolled disturbance in the brain.

So as a treatment, patients went through surgery where the corpus callosum (the nerve fibres connecting the left and right brain) was cut. Thus separating the two hemispheres and preventing the seizures to spread to the entire brain.

However, these patients also developed other symptoms as the connection between the two hemispheres was cut. Psychobiologist Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga conducted a number of experiments on these split-brain patients and found that the two separated hemispheres functioned independently.

For example, when the participants were showed different words to each eye, they could only remember the word seen by the right eye. And when two different objects were shown to each eye, participants drew the object seen by their left eye but described the object with their right eye.

Based on these experiments, Rogger Sperry suggested that the two hemispheres specialize in different tasks. Generally speaking, the left side controls different parts of logic and language while the right tends to controls spatial information.

Suggested Read: What Is Selective Attention — How It Works, Theories and Some Fun Tests

The Truth

The human brain includes two hemispheres separated by nerve fibres. The right brain controls the moment of the left side of the body while the left brain controls the moment of the right side. Although the two hemispheres are responsible for performing distinct tasks and some functions are controlled more by one over another, it takes both the halves to perform the tasks. Nothing is completely lateralized. Whether you’re performing a logical or creative activity, you’re receiving a collaborative input from both sides of your brain.

For example, the left brain is credited for language, but it also takes the right brain to help you understand context and tone. The left processes spoken language while the right processes music. Similarly, while the left brain helps us with math equations, it requires the right brain to process the estimates and comparisons. Thus, most of the tasks involve multiple cognitive activities that make the two sides of the brain function together.

In a study by a team of neuroscientists, 1,000 people went through FMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, a brain imaging technology) to analyze if people used one side of the brain over another. After a two-year analysis, no evidence about right-brain or left-brain dominance was found. Instead, it suggested that on average both sides of the brains were equally active while performing tasks.

So, no research or evidence justifies the concept of being “left-brained” or “right-brained”.

Wrapping Up

Since you are here, if you enjoy challenging your brain, don’t forget to check out our PUZZLES section. We have some crazy archives of puzzles and brain games that’ll keep you engaged all day long.