TheLeft and RightBrain Theory

Discover how your brain works, what your dominate side is, and how to improve the

overall quality of your brain. Also, its relations to artists and other theories.

Table of Contents

The Brain(Roger Sperry and the Corpus Callosum).................... 3

Left Hemisphere............................................................... 4

Right Hemisphere............................................................ 5

Take the Test(What’s your dominant hemisphere?).......................... 6

Improve Your Brain.......................................................... 8

Salvador Dali Test........................................................... 10

Artists and Theories................................................... 12-13

Conclusion...................................................................... 14

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The Brain

Roger W. Sperry won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1981, for his work with in “Split Brain’ research. The ‘Split Brain’ studies the effects of the left and right hemispheres and their connection to each other. Sperry was able to prove that each hemisphere specialized in different functions, and that the two sides can operate almost independently.

The ‘Split Brain’ meant cutting the corpus callosum, the connection between the two brain hemispheres. In the 1960’s, the procedure was conducted on patients who suffered epilepsy, causing patients to have seizures. Seizures were caused by excessive signalling of nerve cells, so by cutting the connection, the seizure was not able to spread across the hemispheres. After the procedure, patients noticed changes in their behavior. Each hemisphere was still able to learn and function but one hemisphere was not able to communicate with the other hemisphere.

Corpus Callosum

By studying the effects these patients had after the procedure, it was demonstrated that the left and right hemispheres specialized in different tasks. For example, the left speaks much better than the right, while the right is responsible for space perception tasks and music. The right hemisphere can only produce rudimentary words and phrases, but contributes to the emotional context of language. The two hemispheres work together in most instances in order to perform its best for people to better understand concepts. The left brain may be able to read words but the right brain helps you imagine and visualize the words.

The right side of the brain controls muscles on the left side of the body and the left side of the brain controls muscles on the right side of the body. Sensory information from the left side of the body crosses over to the right side of the brain and information from the right side of the body crosses over to the left side of the brain.

Since each hemisphere had special functions and capabilities, it was noted that people also had a dominant side just like a dominant hand or eye. The major difference between the two hemispheres is how an individual learns, processes information, and performs tasks. However, no matter which dominant brain the person has does not mean they are incapable of certain tasks they just go about it in a different way.

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Left HemisphereThe left side of your brain, “the interpreter” is responsible for the more logical, rational aspects of your thinking, as well as your verbal skills. The left is compelled to analyze and group sensations in ways that allow for finer-grained decisions.

LanguageYour ability to express yourself in

words is usually controlled by the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere.

Scientific ThoughtLogical scientific thinking is the job of

the left side of the brain, although most science also involves being creative.

Rational ThoughtThinking and reacting in a rational way

appears to be mostly a left-brain activity. It allows you to analyze a

problem to find an answer.

Mathematical SkillsStudies show that the left side of the brain is much better at dealing with

numbers than the right, and it is responsible for mathematical skills.

Writing SkillsLike spoken language, writing skills that involve organizing ideas and

expressing them in words are largely controlled by the left side.

Right HemisphereThe right side of the brain seems to be the focus of your more creative thoughts and emotional, intuitive responses. It is also important for spatial awareness. It handles sensory information in basic ways, such as recognizing faces and sorting through all the pieces of a visual scene.

Spatial SkillsYour ability to visualize and work with three-dimensional shapes is strongly linked to the right side of your brain.

ArtVisual art is related to spatial skills, and the right side of your brain is probably more active when you are drawing, painting, or looking at art.

ImaginationYour creative imagination is mostly directed by the right hemisphere, although expressing that imagination involves left brain skills.

InsightThose moments of insight when you connect two very different ideas probably come from the right half of your brain.

MusicLike visual art, music involves a lot of right brain activity - but trained musicians also use their left brains to master musical theory.

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Take the TestNow that you have better understanding of the brain and how each hemisphere function, you probably have an idea of what your dominant side of the brain is. But just to be sure, here is a test to determine what dominant hemisphere you have.

Instructions:Every time you read a description or characteristic that applies to you, circle the number. (There is no certain number of characteristics you must choose).

1. I constantly look at a clock or wear a watch.2. I keep a journal or diary of my thoughts.3. I believe there is a either a right and wrong way to do everything.4. I find it hard to follow directions precisely.5. The expression “life is just a bowl of cherries” makes no sense to me. 6. I frequently change my plans and find that sticking to a schedule is boring.7. I think it’s easier to draw a map than tell someone how to get somewhere.8. To find a lost item, I try to picture it in my head where I last saw it. 9. I frequently let my emotions guide me. 10. I learn math with ease.11. I’d read the directions before assembling something. 12. People tell me I am always late getting places.13. People have told me that I’m psychic.14. I need to set goals for myself to keep me on track.15. When somebody asks me a question, I turn my head to the left.16. If I have a tough decision to make, I write down the pros and cons.17. I probably make a good detective.18. I learn music with ease.19. To solve a problem, I think of similar problems I have solved in the past.20. I use a lot of gestures.21. If someone asks me a question, I turn my head to the right.22. I believe there are two ways to look at almost everything.23. I have the ability to tell if people are lying or guilty of something, just by looking at them. 24. I keep a “to do” list.25. I am able to throughly explain my opinions in words.

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26. In a debate, I am objective and look at the facts before forming an opinion.27. I’ve considered becoming a poet, a politician, an architect, or a dancer.28. I always lose track of time.29. When trying to remember a name I forgot, I’d recite the alphabet until I remembered it.30. I like to draw.31. When I’m confused, I usually go with my gut instinct.32. I have considered becoming a lawyer, journalist, or doctor.

1. L2. L3. L4. R5. L6. R7. R8. L

9. R10. L11. L12. R12. R14. L15. R16. L

17. L18. R19. R20. R21. L22. R23. R24. L

25. L26. L27. R28. R29. L30. R31. R32. L

- Count up the number of L’s and R’s. Whichever number is higher represents your dominance.- If the numbers are close, that means you use both sides of your brain equally.

Now that you know your dominate side, it is also important to know that this does not mean you are completely one sided, as you can tell from the test. Everyone has both left brain and right brain characteristics but this all depends on our personalities and values. One side of the brain is not better than the other either, rather it’s just how we are programmed to think and process information.

Number of: L ___ R ___ I am _____ brain dominant.

Over-reliance on one hemisphere can create a bad situation. When no new ideas are expressed, frustration ensues, and the overworked side of your brain burns out. This can also lead to physical problems because the healthy body cannot maintain homeostasis, or an internal equilibrium if the brain is not in balance.

Your brain is similar to a muscle - the more you use it, the better it gets. So its important to improve the less-dominant side. So to get those muscles pumping, try some brain work-outs.

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Improve Your Brain

Working either your left or right side of your brain too hard can cause problems for your whole body, so it is important to work both sides to achieve better equilibrum and health for your body and mind.

So now that you know what your dominant side is, here are some helpful tips to utilize that side and what is the best way to learn and process information. This will be helpful in your school, work, and personal life.

Left:The best way for you to learn new information is by taking notes, whether written or mental. Your left side of the brain is more capable of processing information analytically. You are an auditory learner and better at using words to remember information.

Right:The best way for you to learn new information is by making visuals. Your right side of the brain is more capable at recognizing images, maps, and photos. This means you are a visual learner and making mind maps and drawing visuals will work better to your advantage.

When the Right Brain is Overtaxed:- staring off into space- feeling overly emotional and sensitive- feelings of panic- difficulty paying attention

Right Brain Relief Ideas:- write a critical review of your favorite movie- learn new software- work on a crossword- develop a personal budget- organize your closet

When the Left Brain is Overtaxed:- difficulty communicating- feelings of worry- difficulty problem solving- inability to follow a schedule

Left Brain Relief Ideas:- make a gourmet meal that you create yourself- dance- go for a scenic drive- take a walk outdoors- listen to music- play with your children

When the left brain is fatigued from use symptoms include a painful jaw, headaches, colds, and the flu. But by stimulating the right side of the brain, you will become more relaxed. When using the right brain heavily, symptoms include extreme physical and emotional fatigue. Here are some more symptoms, reliefs, and workouts for the left/right hemispheres:

Hemispheres complement one another, and well-adjusted people need to utilize both. The left hemispheres helps us understand the text of our lives while the right provides the context.

Left Brain Workouts:1) Craft sentence structures including spelling and grammar. The process of writing and planning.2) Try crosswords, anagrams, suduko, tough math problems, or a game of chess.3) Make to-do lists, organize data, or write in a diary. 4) Learn a new skill, activity or language.5) Read a book and do not skim.

Right Brain Workouts:1) Make more observations in developing your photographic memory2) Try word association, doodling, and memory games. Experiment!3) Take up an art of interest; music, painting, dancing, theatre, or writing.4) Spark your motor skills with orgami. Be innovative.5) Think up a strategy, visualize it, and implement it. Example: Sports

Here is website that was

specifically made to help train

your brain, using games and

activities to increase your

brain power. Luminosity.com

Your non-dominant hemisphere of the brain will shut down between 75%-85% during stress, as the brain shifts into an efficient reaction pattern to survive. This is why it is important to excercise your non-dominant side, because when you are stressed your dominant brain will become overtaxed as well so sometimes you may need to rely on your non-dominant hemisphere.

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Salvador Dali TestThe image below is Salvador Dali’s surrealist painting, The Persistence of a Memory, painted in 1931. Your task below is answer the following questions about the image. We will then go on to recognize how the left and right hemisphere are involved. Look at the painting below:

Questions:1) What objects do you see in the painting?2) What do the clocks represent?3) What do the ants on the orange clock represent?4) What does the setting of the beach say about the meaning of the painting?5) What is Dali trying to acheive as his main message about the painting?6) Does the title of the painting help with the message?7) Does the white cloth look like anything else?

9 1/2” x 13”Oil Painting1931

About your answers...

1) You probably noticed the clocks, ants, beach, white cloth, cliff, tree, and block structures.2) Clocks usually represent time, and the fact that they are melting could mean they are stopped or maybe slowing down.3) The ants could mean decay or minimalism.4) The beach could represent the feeling of time or it could just be the setting that the artist chose.5) Dali’s message could be about time or time slowing down, or possibly even a dream.6) The Persistence of Memory could mean the slowing of time represented by the clocks. 7) The white cloth looks like an animal or a profile of a face.

The Truth...Depending on what dominant side you have, some of your answers will be different from each other. If you are left side dominant you were likely to recognize the images first and then look at the entire painting together. As for the meaning of the painting you were likely to come up with a logical answer about time. This would make sense since there are four clocks in the painting. If you are right side dominant you would have looked at the entire painting first and then picked apart the images in the painting. For the meaning of the painting you may have thought of a more creative meaning that included an emotional/feeling.

When it comes to Dali’s surrealist paintings both interpretations are correct, there really is no correct interpretation because Dali meant for his paintings to have many interpretations. Critics have come up with many inter-pretations, here are a few. The painting is in relation to Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity: that time itself is relative and not fixed. The clock may represent the collapse of pre-modern notion of time, contradicting everyday experience. The ants may represent death and decay, symbolizing the expectation of time as eternal by depicting his clocks decaying.

A round grey figure looks like a dolphin or perhaps a profile of Dali himself. The tree adds the sense of flexibilty of time as one clock flops down from a branch. Dali focused on dreams and hallucinations as a surrealist, so he combines images that are unreal with images that are familiar much like a dream which juxtapose the oridinary and the strange. The painting could suggest psychoanalytic values, those that deal with the research of Sigmund Freud. Dali has used sandy beaches more than once, similar to the ones he was exposed to as a child. Perhaps the images of the melting clocks are nothing more than the idea influenced by Camembert cheese left out for too long, as Dali has previously described as his inspiration for this painting, noted by Dali himself in his book. Dali uses light to communicate ideas, you can see the difference between soft (uncertain) and hard (certain) objects. Images that are in shade are representing subconscious images, and the sun-lit mountain/cliff and water represent consciousness. Dali’s paintings are psychologically deep, and perhaps the sensory memory is what influenced the famous “melting clocks” painting since it is precisely this type of memory that makes it possible to attach our experiences to something we end up remembering at its deepest level. 11

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When it comes to the practice of theory, there are many that can be applied to the theory of the left and right brain hemispheres. It is the way people think and how they process information, and eventually come up with ideas. Depending on the dominant side, people can come up with all sorts of ideas regarding the world, like race, religion, money, the economy, gender, and sexuality. Here are a few specific theories that deal with the way people think.

Theories

Positivism:Positivism refuses to engage with interpretation. Only the facts can be selected, presented, and recognizes that the sciences deal with the facts, as if it is the only true source of knowledge. When it comes to art, formal qualities (formalism) are the most important aspect for describing the art. This is a very left hemisphere way of thinking. It is a very logical way of interpretation, looking at the background and structure to form a conclusion.

Methodology:Methodology is a guideline for solving problems with special components such as phrases, tasks, methods, techniques, and tools. This theory is left brained because it is the process of formulating questions and then trying to answer those questions. It uses a formal analysis when approaching art.

Psychoanalysis:Psychoanalysis is a structure of theories concerning the relation of the conscious and unconscious psychological processes. This theory is both left and right. It is left because it identifies therelationships the work of art to the artist and viewer. But it is also and mainly right side because it looks at the conscious of those people and the nature of creativity and of the art itself.

Semiotics:Semiotics is identifying symbols and their meaning. Along with semiotics is iconography and iconology. Iconography is the study of images. This a right hemisphere aspect because you are seeing and visualizing the symbol. Iconology is the identification through iconographic analysis and the explaination of the imagery. This leans more to the left brain because it trys to explain how or why the imagery was used in terms of its cultural background.Also, the signifier and signified work with semiotics. The signifier is the form the symbol takes (right) and the signified is the concept the symbol represents (left).

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ArtistsAs an artist, you need to be able to visualize the final image in your mind (right brain) and then develop the image by chosing elements, matching and mixing colors, placing in the shadows and highlights. But at the same time you will also be looking criticalling at what you’ve done (left brain). It turns out that left-brained people can be just as creative as right brained, they just come about it in a different way.

Right brained people may lean more to abstract art, because of the lack of organization and order. Abstract art is not so much about the structure but rather the emotion, where you are more likely to pick up on a deeper meaning.

Left brained people may be more attracted to a more ordered form of art, like photo-realism. As long as it follows guidelines, form, and sense.

Artists are likely to have mixed characteristics so it would make sense that they apply these different forms into their work as well. You can find your style by experimenting with abstraction and realism and you can determine your prefer-ence by your dominant side of the brain. Also, if you like organization go ahead and use it in your art too, don’t fight your natural instinct for order. You can be just as original by using measurements, form, pattern, and rules. But always try to imagine the outcome first, and then work on the detail along the way.

Nobody’s art or design work will be perfect at first but the only way to get better at them is to accept their faults and to work on them. We can also understand what we are naturally good at and focus on that too.

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Left Brain Inventory Right Brain Inventory

Verbal, focusing on words, symbols, and numbers.

Visual, focusing on images, patterns.

Analytic, led by logic. Intuitive, led by feelings.

Process ideas sequentially, step by step

Process ideas simultaneously

Words used to remember things, remember names rather than faces

Mind photos’ used to remember things, writing things down or illustrating them helps you to remember

Make logical deductions from information.

Make lateral connections from information

Work up to the whole step by step, focusing on details, information organized.

See the whole first, then the details.

Highly organized Organization ends to be lacking.

Free associationLikes making lists and planning.

Likely to follow the rules without questioning them.

Good at keeping track of time. No sense of time

Like to know why you’re doing something or why rules exist

Spelling and mathematical formula easily memorized.

Enjoy observing Enjoy touching and feeling actual objects (sensory input)

May have trouble spelling and finding words to express yourself.

Plan ahead

Likely to read an instruction manual before trying

Unlikely to read a manual before trying

Trouble prioritizing, so often late, and impulsive

Listen to what is being said

Rarely use gestures when talking Talk with your hands.

Listen to how something is being said

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Conclusion

Roger W. Sperry was able to identify that the brain has special functions on each side of the brain by conducting ‘Split Brain” experiments and research. Now that you know what your dominant side of the brain is, you also know what exactly that entails. However, just because you have a dominant side, that does not mean you should over use it. Excessive use of a hemisphere will cause stress and harm on your body so its best to remember to excercise both sides. A healthy person has equilibrium when both sides are used and the brain can perform to its best potential. You can also take advantage of your dominant hemisphere by knowing how you process information and use it in your everyday life to accomplish full results.

When it comes to interpreting different art works, our hemispheres come into play as well. We see and process things differently depending on our dominant sides. We were also able to note that there are many ways to interpret works of art not just based on hemispheres either. The one thing is about how it relates to you and how you see it.

As artists we all have different styles and we create them depending on our characteristics, which can come from our dominant brain hemisphere. Often, the right hemisphere will lean more towards abstracts, whereas, the left hemisphere will lean more towards realism and order. There is no correct way to make art so go on and experiment!

In relation to theories, theories can only be made when people are thinking about new ideas. People process information and produce different results depending how they think which is directly related to the left and right brain hemispheres. All theories eventually will relate back to this theory of the brain.