Brain Asymmetry Experiment

One Brain or Two?, Michael Gazzaniga and Roger W. Sperry explore the independent abilities of the two hemispheres in the brain, the left and right, by studying split-brain patients and their responses to certain tests. The tests are designed to examine the mental and perceptual capacities of the split-brain patients. With careful placement of objects or pictures, the first test measures the visual abilities of the patients. The second test measures the tactile cognition abilities of the patients by allowing them to feel an object behind a screen, then asking them to name the object. The third and more challenging test combines the visual test and tactile test to measure the auditory abilities of the patients. Each of these tests shows the different ways that the brain works in split-brain and normal brain humans alike.

The human brain is a wondrous invention that has many scientists and researchers very busy to this very day. There are numerous qualities about the brain humans know about, yet there are still a great number of mysteries to the brain and how it functions left to be discovered and shared. Some facts scientists do know about the brain is that it is divided into to primary sections, called hemispheres. Each person has a left and right hemisphere of the brain. Each hemisphere is in charge of specific abilities, tasks, and functions. This paper will review what each hemisphere is responsible for and describe ways that each hemisphere is predisposed to learn.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the correlational method as a means for examining the relationship between functions of the left and right hemispheres. I will compare the performance of people with intact brains with the performance of so-called split-brain patients. In many ways, the brains of these two groups are very similar. 1a. The brain stem is found in the deepest part of the brain. The brainstem controls the automatic survival functions of the body, such as breathing. There are no differences between the function of the normal brainstem and the brain of a split brain patient. The brainstem will still supply the automatic survival functions of the body. 1b. The hippocampus is found in the limbic system along with the amygdala, the hypothalamus. The hippocampus is in charge of allowing the body to process information into memories. Without the hippocampus, there is no way for new memories to be created. There is no anatomical difference between the hippocampus in the normal brain and a split brain. 1c. The corpus callosum is found in the center of the brain. The role it plays as a part of the brain is it connects both the left and right hemispheres of the brain, allowing them to work and interact together as a whole system. The difference between the anatomy of the corpus callosum in a split brain patient versus someone without a

The other test held was an auditory test. The test was done in two different ways. One way was finding the objects in a bag that were mentioned verbally and the other was identifying the item reached by touch. This test’s results were also supporting the previous researchers’ logical conclusion about the left hemisphere ability of speech. It confirmed the right hemisphere’s ability of comprehending language and its ability of expressing it in a nonverbal way. During the test, evidently, the right hemisphere had no trouble identifying the unknown objects by touch as the left hemisphere did. Moreover, some three- dimensional drawings of the slit-brain patients, who were all right handed, developed much better drawings using their left hands compared with their right hands.

The participants for this study were recruited from a Spring 2013 Experimental Psychology Undergraduate Course at Queens College, City University of New York. The research study was IRB approved and the participants for this study were not compensated. However, by remaining in the course, the students gave consent to participate in all studies. There were a total of 22 participants, 20 being females and two males. The participants consisted of 21 right-handed individuals and one left-handed. The mean age was 21.09 years, and the standard deviation for age was 1.02.

The book starts with the Chapter Right Brain Rising describing hemisphere of left brain and right brain. According to Pink the left brain hemisphere is consistent of logistic, literal and analytic personal whereas right brain is for holistic reasoning, body language, patterns recognitions and emotions. He carefully pointed out that the term L-Brain

Let’s start out with Jacquelyn McBain, an animal and human behavior specialist who commented on a question displayed on a website called Quora. McBain wrote that right handed people tend to turn towards the right while left

The results of this study show us the brain is not in fact symmetrical and the two hemispheres in the brain work in different ways. The left hemisphere is known to play the dominant role, which is in control of all complex behavioural and cognitive processes as for the right hemisphere it only plays a minor role. This report will further analyse how different the two hemisphers is the dominant side of the brain.

For many decades people have been considered to be either right or left side dominant in regards to brain function which came with defined roles such as “creative” or “analytical”. This thinking tends to be over-simplified as most people use their entire brains daily (Jensen, 2010). On the other hand people do use different parts of their brain for different tasks according to how they perceive those tasks.

In 1967, M.S. Gazzaniga studied the split brain in man. Gazzaniga wanted to study how the two halves of the brain functioned independently. Since it a little unethical to snip the peoples corpus callosums just for fun, it wasn‘t until doctors discovered that cutting the corpus callosum could actually cure severe epileptic seizures that it was possible for Gazzaniga and Sperry to study them. They found that the test subjects intelligence, personality, and emotions had not changed. We use each half of our brains for specific skills. Three different tests were designed to check mental capabilities. It was found that the left-brain is better at speaking, writing, reading, and math, and the right brain is better at recognizing

Discrepancies in Activated Brain Regions. While there are many overlaps in the cognitive processes involved in both mental rotation and sign language, resulting in similar brain activation patterns, many researchers still dispute over which cortical regions are activated during these tasks. For example, while many studies have reported right parietal cortex activation during mental rotation (Lane et al., 2011; Harris et al., 2000), Alivisatos and Petrides (1997) reported activation of the left posterior-superior parietal cortex during mental rotation tasks proportional to the angle discrepancy between the two rotated objects. In addition, contradicting the results of these studies suggesting lateralization of spatial abilities, Carpenter et

What I learned in this handedness experiment, was how many people are not left handed. People’s family’s in the class had 14% lefties. I didn’t think lefties were that rare. There was a higher percentage of 22% in my class. What surprised me the most was that there was on average 9% lefties at our school. We had only collected 525 people which isn’t even half, but it gives you a rough idea. There was an average of 10% lefties and 90% righties.

Left-right brain dominance is about the fact that the distinct hemispheres influence thinking. The left hemisphere is associated with logical, analytical thinking and a linear approach to problem solving. The right hemisphere is associated with creative, intuitive and value-based thought process. It is important to note that everyone uses its both hemispheres, but to varying degrees. Four quadrants of the brain, related to different thinking style, have been identified:

Right brain? Left brain? Both sides are very different and have their own characteristics that help determine what a persons potential strengths and weaknesses will be. “The human brain is split into two halves, each with its own unique abilities. This phenomenon, discovered three decades ago by Nobel Prize winner Dr. Roger Sperry and his associates at the California Institute of Technology, is known as brain lateralization” (Raudsepp, 1992, p. 85). Certain characteristics of a person can go so much deeper then just hobbies that a person enjoys. Brain function can play a major role in how a person perceives their surroundings, such as if someone like to draw or do math. On the other side of that if a person is very analytical and good at subjects in school such as math it could be linked to which side of their brain is dominant.

The right hemisphere (Male) is the one that usually deals with visual-spatial tasks. Female who tend to be quicker at tasks involving language processing have been called left-brained. One theory that explains the gender differences in spatial abilities is hunter-gatherer theory of the origin of sex-specific spatial attributes. This view holds that men and women have different cognitive abilities appropriate to their sex roles in their prehistoric lifestyles. Prehistoric females (i.e. gatherers) who had to forage for food and keep track of objects, locations and landmarks near their homes were more successful at acquiring resources for bearing and raising offspring. Males (i.e. hunters) who were better able to travel in unfamiliar territory, estimate distance, and navigate with an eye view orientation were more successful at hunting, competing with other males, finding mates, and having children.