17Nov2009
left brain vs. right brain. fact or fiction?
Posted by timezoneone
The Right Brain vs Left Brain test … do you see the dancer turning clockwise or anti-clockwise? If clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa. Most of us would see the dancer turning anti-clockwise though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it. For some reason she seems to be spinning faster here than in the original article, click here for the original.
Every now and then I seem to come across something like this that purports to tell you if you are Left brained or Right brained, as if it’s impossible to be both creative and logical. I’ve always founds this a little odd, as I like to think I have skills in both areas. So I delved a little deeper, and found a few holes in this theory. Turns out this ‘test’ doesn’t tell you your hemispheric dominance and is not a personality profile, just another optical illusion. We do have two hemispheres that work fine independently and have different abilities, but they are massively interconnected and work together seamlessly as a whole. There is some hemispheric dominance, but it mostly determines your handedness and the probability of language being on the right or the left. None of this means that your personality or abilities are more right brain or left brain.
So there’s no need to panic if you thought you might be under-utilizing half of your brain. Although it’s fun to see where you might ‘fit’ amongst others, everyone is different and has their own way of doing things.
Mythbuster Rose
