Sex Differences

The Nervous System

Nerves.
The Brain
The Cerebral Cortex
Theories About Thinking
Sex Differences

Corpus callosum.
The corpus callosum itself has attracted the
attention of biologists searching for sex
differences. It will be remembered that it was
surgery to sever it that drew attention to the
differing organisation of the two sides of the
cortex.
There is a great deal of dispute about whether
there are reliable average differences between the
sexes. Originally, it was claimed that it was
larger overall in women, relative to brain size.
Later the claim was that the posterior portion, the
splenium was larger.
Fausto-Stirling(1,2) is extremely critical of studies
in this area. Since 1982 there have been at least
seventeen papers published. Since no two
approach the problem in the same way, she
suggests that none of them corroborate each
other. What does appear is that there are changes
with age, yet only one of the studies used agematched subjects. Also, if there any sex
differences at all, they show up after birth,
possibly not until after adolescence.
Considering the millions of axons which must
traverse this region, there is no total picture of
their path. Larger nerve bundles can be traced
leading to the front and back but, though a
reasonable general rule is for them to take the
shortest path, this is by no means inflexible..

The result of differences in the corpus callosum

are said to result in a greater relative fluency of
thought and speech. Reminding ourselves that
no-one has actually counted the number of
axons, nor traced their connections, we are told
that this results in greater communication
between the cerebral hemispheres of women. It is
suggested that women's greater sensitivity to
emotional, non verbal communication, even their
intuition, comes from the greater connectivity in
their minds. A man is more purpose orientated.
Emotions are kept on the right side of his brain,
which, being less connected to the left, mean that
he can, less easily, express emotions. Clearly,
biological effects are not the whole story, for
men are expected to be relatively unemotional.
There is another structure that connects between
the cerebral hemispheres, the anterior
commissure. It communicates visual, olfactory
and auditory information and is larger in women
than men. Allen has demonstrated that it is also
larger in homosexual men.

Size isn't everything.

A myth that surfaces, from time to time, is one
from the nineteenth century that purported to
show that women have smaller brains than men.
It had been put forward in the nineteenth century
in an effort to prove that women (and black
people) were inferior. The authors of that time
had not taken account of the fact that women are,
or were, in general smaller overall than men.
Even then it was pointed out that there was such
a wide variation, an enormous sample size would
needed to show a significant difference.
Was it, then, true? And why did it matter?
Fausto-Sterling answers the first question fairly
effectively. "the average male/female difference
in brain weight for all ages is 9.8%. when

charted as a function of either height or weight,

however, the difference in adults virtually
disappeared." This from a study of over four
thousand subjects.(3)
What matters is the complexity of the cortex. If
overall size was all that mattered, elephants
would have a considerable intellect. The human
cerebral cortex contains some ten to fifteen
thousand million neurons, with four times as
many glial cells, and one million billion synaptic
connections. Spread out, the total surface area
would cover about three quarters of a square
metre.

Sex and lateralisation.

Where the gender debate first arose, was from
claims about differences between men and
women in the way they use the two halves of the
cortex.
The original hypothesis was that men used their
logical left side while women used the emotional
irrational right side. However, the argument soon
arose that, if language was a function of the left
side, how was it that women were better at
expressing themselves verbally?
This is rather a simplistic view of the
controversy, however, the theory was modified to
suggest men have greater lateralisation, that their
abilities are more compartmentalised, while, in
women utilisation of the two halves is more
diffuse.
From the sixties onward, Landsell was working
with people who had damage to one side of the
cortex or the other. The knowledge of the time
indicated that damage to the left hemisphere
should lead to deficits in verbal tasks, while
right-side damage should produce deficits in

visuospatial tasks. This proved particularly true

for men, but the prediction was not borne out
well for women. It led him to speculate that the
abilities of the two hemispheres overlapped to an
extent.
Electroencephalogram measurements have also
shown a difference. When given abstract
problems to work out, men showed a great deal
of activity in the right side of their brain, while
for women the activity was more generalised to
both sides. Similar studies with teenage boys and
girls gave similar results.
With women who had Turner's syndrome, which
comes about because they have only one X
chromosome, XO, and are considered to behave
in a very feminine manner, this diffusion of
organisation was particularly marked. The
phenomenon has also been found in men whose
exposure to androgens in the womb was reduced.
Workers following hormonal hypotheses have
found that in rats given testosterone at birth, the
females developed a larger corpus callosum.
Others have found that male rats showed a
thicker right hemisphere, except when they were
very old. One developmental theory is that high
levels of prenatal testosterone slow neuron
growth in left hemisphere.
However, Shute(4) analysed blood samples from
groups of males and females whose hormones
were within the normal range. For spatial tests,
females with high androgen levels performed
better than their lower androgen counterparts.
However, low testosterone men performed better
than high testosterone men, leading the
researchers to conclude that high androgens may
inhibit the acquisition of spatial skills, and that
there may a low optimum level.

Other tests have claimed that females are

superior in language, verbal fluency, speed of
articulation and grammar, also arithmetic
calculation. Their perceptual speed, for instance
in matching items is better, and so is their manual
precision. Males are reckoned to be better at
tasks that are spatial in nature, such as maze
performance and mental rotation tasks. Also
mechanical skills, mathematical reasoning and
finding their way through a route. Certainly,
among brain injury patients, after damage to the
left hemisphere, long term speech difficulties
occur three times more often in males.
Some critics asked why, after a hundred years of
research, these findings have only just appeared.
One reason may be that most of the subjects
studied originally were male war veterans. But,
in any case, nobody had looked for sex
differences. What we are discussing are average
differences which are statistically significant but
their effect is very small within a very wide
range of individual variation. The investigator
must be specifically looking for them, using a
large number of subjects.

Anatomy.
Differences in brain anatomy have included the
length of the left temporal plane, which is usually
longer than the right. Of those showing a
reversal, which was assumed to reflect a lesser
degree of lateralisation, most were female.
However, as Springer and Deutsch(5) warn us:
"the link between anatomical asymmetries and
functional hemispheres is an untested
assumption."
Cerebral blood flow is used as a measure of
cerebral activation and, in a mental rotation task,
women scored significantly lower. Both men and
women showed greater right hemisphere activity,

though with men it was greater in the right

frontal lobe, and with women it was greater in
the temporal-parietal region. Other differences
have been found in other tasks, but there is no
way of telling whether they are due to a
difference in structural organisation, or simply
the use of different strategies.
Some of the results are difficult to compare with
others. For instance in recognising melodies and
familiar sounds, women have had a left ear
advantage, while in men, the difference was very
small. Some workers have suggested that
lateralisation for certain nonverbal auditory
stimuli may be greater in women, rather than
less.
Another problem is that the degree of
lateralisation for auditory and visual tests do not
always correlate for one individual. It may be
that different individuals have different
organisation for different tasks, or they are
bringing in strategies that the experimenter didn't
intend, thus confounding the results. Repeating
the tests at a later date, with the same subject,
does not always produce the same result, as
though on each occasion the problem has been
approached in a slightly different way.

Unlearning learning.
We have seen how plastic cortical development
is. Even with laboratory rats, it has been shown
that those reared in a stimulating environment
develop a much more intricate cerebral
organisation than those reared in nothing more
than a bare cage. Development is not either
predicted by biology or learning.
Brain development goes on for many years after
birth. It clearly must be influenced as much by
the environment after birth as it was before.

Exactly how and why, and by how much, is

something that psychologists and biologists
generally are very reticent to explore. They
continue to work on independently following
their separate paradigms, and do not cross the
boundary. Psychologists use the general
assumption that memory is composed of patterns
of neuron firing. Biologists tend to work with
permanent structures. It is thought that if a
particular synapse is active often enough, it
becomes more permanent, operating in
preference to other possible synapses.
Others(6) have made suggestions based on the
assumption that the degree of myelinisation of a
particular area of the nervous system is a
measure of its maturity - or, conversely, its loss
of plasticity.
Clearly the social experience of a young baby is
limited, but even then it is interacting, soaking up
experience like a sponge. In an astonishingly
short time it becomes proficient in a complicated,
not entirely logical language. Even before an
infant begins to talk, it understands sentences
containing quite complex sequences.
Socialisation begins when it meets other
children. In the days of the tribal group, this may
have been from its first steps. In recent England,
school began at five, and its primary experience
would have been its parents, its siblings, relatives
and visitors, perhaps next-door's children.
The author has, from time to time, met
counsellors, and other, who claim that
transvestites can be cured. Gender reassignment
is seen by a prejudiced National Health Service
as elective cosmetic surgery. Gay people choose
their way of life. Can anyone become other than
who they really are? Something that is learned
can be unlearned surely? Perhaps it is in reaction

to such attitudes that certain groups of TV's and

others are so insistent about the biological model
- otherwise they could 'help' being who they are.
It is assumed that much of one's personality is
learned, with an Eysenckian biological substrate,
yet it is also assumed that any extensive
personality change means trouble. It's a question
that psychology has not really addressed, perhaps
developmental neurobiology will, one day,
provide some answers, if it can, once and for all,
free itself from political gender bias.

Conclusion.
Many critics have complained of the prevalence
of what psychologists call the type 1 error in a
number of these studies. That is, the differences
are real when the results are actually due to
chance. The problem is in extracting common
features in a area where individual people vary
greatly.
On balance, Springer and Deutsch(7) accept that
there is a very small but consistent greater degree
of lateralisation in male humans. They conclude
"Our review of the lateralisation literature in
general has given us a healthy respect for the
type 1 error . . . . the consistency of reports of sex
differences . . . . lead us to accept their reality, at
least as a working hypothesis . . . . . there are
true differences that are small in magnitude and
easily masked by individual variability or other
factors that are not controlled."
Such differences as have been found have been
labelled by most writers as differences in
cognitive style. Given the difference in
socialisation between girls and boys, it is hardly
surprising that this occurs.
Witleson concluded that people use their

'preferred cognitive strategy' based on the

faculties they have. It is suggested that men and
women may tend to think in different ways, but
every individual thinks in his, or her, individual
way - each of us uses our preferred mental
strategy. Let us not come to believe that all
women think in one way and all men in the other.
Certainly, a study of adult male-to-female
transsexuals found that they were better in verbal
memory, and worse in mental rotation tasks than
a control group of men. Groups of both male and
female transsexuals groups also did not show a
clear degree of lateralisation. Apart from the fact
that, once again, they were possibly extreme
cases, it does not necessarily show that their
minds were 'opposite sexed' for biological
reasons. It could just as well be argued that they
acquired transsexual minds because of their
conflict with the cultural criteria demanded of
them.
The theory must be able to accommodate itself to
allow for general differences, not stigmatising or
clinicising those who do not conform. Men and
women, perhaps, follow careers that utilise their
individual abilities in the most satisfying and
successful way. In spite of the predictions of
biological determinism, there are female artists,
designers, even mathematicians, and we are not
short of male communicators.
As Sayers(8) says: "If boys are more able in
Mathematics and girls have a greater verbal
ability, it is hard to see how men can be better
fitted for political life and their dominant role
there." What we have discovered should not be a
prohibition against a man or a woman from
entering a career normally viewed as being the
province of the other gender, because of the way
we suggest he, or she, 'ought' to think.

Afterword.
Throughout this chapter the difference between
the cerebral hemispheres has been described as
being between verbal versus spatial abilities,
with a qualitative difference between women and
men. Most workers believe this to be far too
simple an idea. It may be that we are labelling
the mental organisation in terms of the rather
limited tests we are applying - we look for
something, so we find it.
Considering the whole range of thought
processes to which humans bring a whole range
of strategies, it is possible that each problem that
an individual's brain attends to is unique,
happening for the first time in human history.
What else can be said about the features of brain
lateralisation? A more realistic way of describing
the situation may be to suggest that each
hemisphere approaches a task in a different way.
Thus the left side may analyse the problem while
the right considers it as a whole. This division
has created a whole raft of hypotheses, such as
rational vs intuitive, and western versus eastern
thinking.
In turn there has been a rash of claims like
"Unleash the power of your right brain. Send 50
for our five-day course." Another is quizzes in
popular journals which claim to test whether
readers think like a man or a women. Naturally
those completing the questionnaire already know
how they ought to think, as men or women, and
even know the 'correct' answers to the questions.
As one group of writers(9) suggest "hemispheric
specialisation has become a sort of trash can for
all sorts of mystical speculation."
Nevertheless some insights have come from

some more reputable sources. One needs to

describe first the difference between conscious
and automatic behaviours. Once we have learned
to walk or ride a bicycle, we never forget.
Current thinking is that such knowledge is
transferred to the cerebellum. Probably, the
automatic actions in manipulating the controls of
a motor car are stored there also.
However, in our daily round we develop what are
called action scripts, habitual procedures like
making a cup of tea. If one goes to one's
bedroom to change for an outing and, instead,
puts on one's nightclothes and get into bed, it is
the confusion of two action scripts. So, some
workers believe that the right hemisphere
handles processes for which there is an
established routine, while the left side deals with
novel situations. Perhaps the right brain handles
more familiar tasks for which an action script is
already available, while the left analytical side is
better equipped to handle new situations.
This leads to an interesting speculation. We have
all been cursed with the driver on the motorway,
hogging the middle lane, operating on right side
'autopilot' mode, while his attentional left
hemisphere is chatting to his passenger. If
women have better communication between the
hemispheres, perhaps they can switch control
more easily, and they really are better drivers
than men. Perhaps insurance companies should
calculate premiums on the basis of brain scans
taken while the person is performing a series of
standardised tasks. Crazy, perhaps, but no more
outlandish than the claims in some 'pop'
psychology books.
Another hypothesis includes the function of the
corpus callosum, which connects each side of the
brain topographically - that is each fibre from a
neuron in one side connects to its equivalent in

the opposite side. This is described more fully in

Springer and Deutsch,(10) but the idea is that an
image in the left half, say a cow, inhibits the
image in the right half, which allows it to conjure
up associated images, like milk or a field.
Psychology students will be familiar with the
words "Top down, bottom up," but other
speculations have included distinctions between
analysis and insight, while another compares the
right hemisphere to Freud's seat of the
unconscious
It has been suggested that, not only is the human
brain more complex than we think, it is more
complex than we can comprehend.
No doubt the debate about sex differences in
general will continue ad nauseum. One study
will suggest "the difference in size between the
sexes has not escaped the notice of
sociobiologists." Another will point out that the
size dimorphism in humans is less than for any
other primate. It all depends on which side of the
bread you like to spread your butter.

Bibliography and good reading.

1. Fausto Sterling, A., (1992) Myths of
Gender, Biological Theories about Women
and Men, New York: Basic Books
(bookshelf)

2. Fausto Sterling, A., (1999) Sexing the

Body: Gender Politics and the
Construction of Sexuality, New York:
Basic Books (bookshelf)
3. Dekaban, A., (1978) Changes in Brain
Weights during the span of Human Lives:
relation of brain weights to body heights to
body weights, Annals of Neurology
4(1978):345-56 in Fausto Sterling, A., (1992)
Myths of Gender, Biological Theories about
Women and Men, (p227) New York: Basic

Books

4. Springer, S.P., Deutsch, G., (1993) Left

Brain Right Brain (Fourth ed. p215), New
York: W.H.Freeman. (bookshelf)
5. Springer, S.P., Deutsch, G.,
6. Gibson, K.R., (1985) Myelinisation and
Behavioural Development: A Comparative
Perspective on Questions of Neoteny, Altricity
and Intelligence, in Gibson, K.R., Petersen,
A.C., Brain Maturation and Cognitive
Development, New York: Aldine De Gruyter.

7. Springer, S.P., Deutsch, G.,(p212),

8. Sayers, J., (1982) Biological Politics,
London: Tavistock
9. Rose.S, Lewontin.R.C, Kamin.L.J, (1990)
Not In Our Genes: Biology, Idealogy and
Human Nature. (p146) Harmondsworth:
Penguin Books. (bookshelf)
10. Springer, S.P., Deutsch, G., (p299)
Citation
Bland, J., (203) About Gender: Sex Differences
http://www.gender.org.uk/about/07neur/77_diffs.htm
Book graphics courtesy of Amazon.co.uk
Web page copyright Derby TV/TS Group. Text copyright Jed
Bland.
08.04.98 Last amended 3.08.03 Reorganised 19.08.03

Unraveling the left brain/right brain

theory
By Amanda Mascarelli | July 24, 2012 | 9 Comments

Not so
long ago, I had more hobbies than I could keep up with, from SCUBA diving to
horseback riding and dancing to snowboarding. Then my son and daughter (now 4
and almost 3) came along, and I found myself struggling to name a single hobby
something, anything, that I can call my own, that I do just because I love to. The
combination of parenting and keeping my writing career afloat just didnt leave
space for me. It was time to learn something new.
So I signed up for a beginner knitting class, certain thatsurelyanyone could
learn to knit. But as I walked toward the yarn shop, my stomach filled with knots
remembering my prior attempts at tasks that required my mind and body to think
or move in three dimensions. In my junior high home-economics project, I sewed
my sweatpants together in the middle of a leg and mangled the elastic waist band.
In my college organic chem lab, I rigged up a contraption of flasks and hoses so
poorly that when I turned on the faucet, water shot clear from our lab bench like a
firehouse all the way to the blackboard, drenching the instructors textbook and
notes along the way.
When I got to knitting class and the teacher and the four of us students introduced
ourselves, I discovered that I was the sole writer among a group of engineers. The
teacher walked us through the basics of how to cast on, knit, and purl. I watched,
and observed, and what I observed was that the other three womenthe engineers
could watch the teacher and just make their fingers do exactly as hers did. I,
however, could not make my fingers stick the needle here or there, under this
stitch and behind that one, unless the teacher stopped everything, walked over, and
moved my fingers for me, repeatedly.
Little by little, yarn did begin to appear like links of chainmail on my needle, but
not without hopeless sighs of consternation and frustration. I couldnt help but

compare myself to the other three students who caught on so effortlessly. The
teacher kept trying to make me feel better by making lighthearted comments about
how its just because Im a writer, and those engineer types just learn differently
you know, that left brain/right brain phenomenon. I left class feeling downtrodden,
insecure, and not at all sure Id be back the following week. I went home that night
and jumped on the website knittinghelp.com, but even trying to follow its beginner
videos reduced me to tears.
I returned to class the next week and even received applause from my classmates,
who were as surprised as I was that I made it back. I finished my beginner project,
a felted tote bag, three months later, after attending multiple help sessions at a
local craft shop. The other three students had polished off their projects by the
third week of class. (To feel better, I told myself its just because they dont have
kids.)

Yet this experience made me ponder just what it is that makes

me, uh, spatially challenged, and whats the science (if any) behind this left
brain/right brain stuff. Although its still deeply embedded in our cultural lore, this
concept has been pretty thoroughly debunked (see here, here, and here). The idea
of a person being either left or right-brain dominant stems from split-brain
research, which dates back to the 1960s. It revealed that the left and right
hemispheres of the brain orchestrate distinct functions: the left side is the center of
language and speech, the right the driver of visual, motor, and spatial tasks. This
got extrapolated into the idea that some people are more analytical and logical (left
brain), while others are artsy, creative types (right brain). Its been used as a
marketing tool to sell Mozart CDs for infants to amp up their spatial cognitive
skills and pills to boost creativity. To the chagrin of neuroscientists, the
misconception still shapes some teaching curricula and is often tossed around
haphazardly by teachers and principals.

Though its a handy paradigm, the brain is far too complex to be broken down into
halves. The brain works by information traveling back and forth, forwards and
backwards, left and right, all the time, says Natasha Kirkham, a development
psychologist at the University of London. Both sides of the brain collaborate in a
complementary way to perform every single thought and movement we make.
The problem, though, is that neuroscience cant yet explain the individual
differences in why one person learns certain activities better than another, says
Charan Ranganath, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California,
Davis. Science tends to tackle questions at a fine scale, yet drawing it all together
to apply it to monumental questions can sometimes lead one to the land of
fiction, he says. Still, there are intriguing and unanswered questions about how
different brain networks are in use when we are applying visual strategies to learn
versus language-based strategies. How those brain networks differ from person to
person and how they differ between the two hemispheres is not well understood,
says Ranganath. But those two factors Ill bet are related to what make you learn
differently from someone else. And like nature and nurture, shown to be
inextricably intertwined, these differences are going to have their roots deep in
both genetics and development, he says.
In fact, Kirkham points to research showing that the influence of early exposure
plays an important role in the skills and preferences we develop. In the UK, for
instance, boys are highly encouraged to play soccer, a skill that requires a lot of
spatial coordination. Despite societys push toward gender neutrality, we still tend
to reward boys for high-activity, spirited play such as jumping and climbing trees,
and girls toward playing games together and conversing, Kirkham says. Its not
like we mean to do it, its just thats what happens. And its not mostly via
parental influence; research shows that a large fraction of this conditioning
happens through differences in educational approaches. Yet this leaves me with
even more questions about why my own upbringing, consisting of ranch work
such as taking care of horses and pets day in and day out, hoisting water buckets
and bales of hay, and riding horses competitively didnt leave me with more threedimensional prowess.
Michael Frank, a cognitive neuroscientist at Brown University, studies how we
learn to navigate the world through positive outcomes (rewards such as smiles
from others) or negative ones (losses, punishments) and how those positive or
negative outcomes shape the individual differences in our learning styles. His
research shows that the abstract actions that gain us rewards early on in
development are the ones we learn to repeat over and over in life, and those
patterns help build our preferences and skill sets. This type of learning is directed
by specific genes that affect the function of dopamine, a neurotransmitter, in a
region in the middle of the brain called the basal ganglia, a massive superhighway

of complex circuitry. Dopamine acts as part of the reward system and goes
charging along nerve cells to deliver its cues to the basal ganglia: Yes! Good job!
Keep it up!, like a pinball game of sorts. You can think of it as a primitive system
that learns to select actions that work for it over the history of its lifetime, says
Frank.

The authors first scarf.

As it turns out, its messy. Neuroscience doesnt yet have an explanation for what
makes us the way we are, in all our complexity and with all our glorious strengths
and maddening limitations. Perhaps the most heartening aspect I can focus on is
that Im not just one way or the other, analytical OR creative, logical OR artistic.
One thing that Ive got going for myself is that this learning curve that I struggle
with pisses me off. And that seems to work to my advantage. The first time I tried
snowboarding back in college (a whole different form of three-dimensional
thinking and movement from knitting), I smacked my head and wrists against the
unforgiving mountain so many times that I was achy and sick for three weeks. And
mad. So mad that I was determined to beat it, and to learn how to glide down the
mountain in those graceful S curves.
My breakthrough came the next time around, when a mountain guide cruised by
and saw the desperation and tear stains on my goggled face: Pretend youre on
stiletto heels for your toe-side turn, he said. Ive not donned many (any?) stiletto
heels in my lifetime, but aha! The imagery clicked. Bliss. I rocked back and sank
into my heels, and the snowboard obeyed, gliding firmly beneath me.

Same goes for knitting: it has become a divine pleasure, a wonderful

procrastination tool, and an outlet for my nervous energy. Ive just finished up my
next project, a scarf, and Im now a hopeless knitting addict, eager for the day
when Ill be whipping up dreamy lace shawls. I can accept the frustration of
learning a new skill when the end result is hours of deep contentment.

***
Amanda Mascarelli is a freelance journalist based in Denver, Colorado. In her
spare time, she now gets lost gazing at yarn online and in local craft

Learn more about right-brain and left-brain dominance.

Julia Freeman-Woolpert

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Have you ever heard people say that they tend to be more of a right-brain or left-brain
thinker? From books to television programs, you've probably heard the phrase mentioned
numerous times or perhaps you've even taken an online test to determine which type best
describes you.
What Is Left Brain - Right Brain Theory?

According to the theory of left-brain or right-brain dominance, each side of the brain controls
different types of thinking. Additionally, people are said to prefer one type of thinking over the
other. For example, a person who is "left-brained" is often said to be more logical, analytical
and objective, while a person who is "right-brained" is said to be more intuitive, thoughtful
and subjective.
In psychology, the theory is based on what is known as the lateralization of brain function. So
does one side of the brain really control specific functions? Are people either left-brained or
right-brained? Like many popular psychology myths, this one has a basis in fact that has been
dramatically distorted and exaggerated.
The right brain-left brain theory grew out of the work of Roger W. Sperry, who was awarded
the Nobel Prize in 1981. While studying the effects of epilepsy, Sperry discovered that cutting
the corpus collosum (the structure that connects the two hemispheres of the brain) could
reduce or eliminate seizures.
However, these patients also experienced other symptoms after the communication pathway
between the two sides of the brain was cut. For example, many split-brain patients found
themselves unable to name objects that were processed by the right side of the brain, but
were able to name objects that were processed by the left-side of the brain. Based on this
information, Sperry suggested that language was controlled by the left-side of the brain.
Later research has shown that the brain is not nearly as dichotomous as once thought. For
example, recent research has shown that abilities in subjects such as math are actually
strongest when both halves of the brain work together.
The Right Brain
According to the left-brain, right-brain dominance theory, the right side of the brain is best at
expressive and creative tasks. Some of the abilities that are popularly associated with the
right side of the brain include:

Recognizing faces
Expressing emotions
Music
Reading emotions
Color
Images
Intuition
Creativity

The Left Brain

The left-side of the brain is considered to be adept at tasks that involve logic, language and
analytical thinking. The left-brain is often described as being better at:

Language
Logic
Critical thinking
Numbers

Reasoning

The Uses of Right-Brain, Left-Brain Theory

While often over-generalized and overstated by popular psychology and self-help texts,
understanding your strengths and weaknesses in certain areas can help you develop better
ways to learn and study. For example, students who have a difficult