The myth of left- or right-brained dominance has become a convenient way to explain away our personality quirks, but these neuroscientists are setting the record straight.
There are hundreds of personality quizzes online that claim to tell you, based on criteria ranging from your preference in paintings to your reported ability to recall names and faces, whether the right or left half of your brain is dominant. Left-brained people, the quizzes will tell you, are logical and excel at language and math; right-brained people are more imaginative, emotionally intelligent and skilled with spatial reasoning. There’s just one problem: That’s not how brains work.
Several 19th-century neurologists, for example, noted the presence of lesions in the left frontal lobes of several patients with speech disorders. Broca’s area, the language center of the brain, was thus named after the most famous scientist to document this connection. In the 1960s, California Institute of Technology neuropsychologist Roger Sperry and doctoral student Mike Gazzaniga worked with four so-called “split-brain” patients who had undergone this surgery. They found subtle but surprising differences in the way the patients processed the world around them., Sperry and Gazzaniga gave the patients a spoon to hold in their right hands and asked them to identify the object without looking.
In their 2013 study, Anderson and his colleagues conducted statistical analyses of over 1,000 brain scans. “In every individual, there would be some connections that are stronger in the left hemisphere and some in the right. And that varied on a connection-by-connection level,” he says. “People had roughly equal mixes of both. When you average it out, it wasn’t the case that one individual would tend to have stronger connections on the whole in the left hemisphere.
Indonesia Berita Terbaru, Indonesia Berita utama
Similar News:Anda juga dapat membaca berita serupa dengan ini yang kami kumpulkan dari sumber berita lain.
Elon Musk Ramping Up for Human Clinical Trials Over Brain Chip TechNeuralink aims to implant microchips into people's brains by 2022, so says Elon.
Baca lebih lajut »
Carmelo Anthony provides second-half spark in Lakers' win at OrlandoCarmelo Anthony scored 19 of his 23 points in the second half Friday night to help the Lakers pick up a 116-105 road victory over the Orlando Magic.
Baca lebih lajut »
Even in The Depths of Sleep, Our Brains Are Alert to Stranger Danger, Says New StudyEven as we slumber, our industrious brains continue working to keep us alive. They ensure our heartbeats and breathing remain on track, wash off the waste they've accumulated throughout the day, and sort and file our memories. Now it seems they achi
Baca lebih lajut »
Klay Thompson out for Friday night’s game against Houston RocketsKlay Thompson to sit out in second half of back-to-back against Houston Rockets
Baca lebih lajut »
Superstores can meet half their electricity needs with rooftop solar, says a new reportFrom Walmart to Ikea, a report finds that the rooftops of big-box stores offer enough solar potential to power the equivalent of 8 million American homes.
Baca lebih lajut »
A Brain-Dead Person Just Scored Two Kidneys From Genetically Modified PigsThe shortage of kidneys is acute and calls for a radical solution to save human lives. Genetically modified pig kidneys could be the answer.
Baca lebih lajut »