Brain Test for Left or Right Brain Dominance

[andi]

Is this test flawed? I've got 0 answers as a right-brain and 18 as a left brain the 1st time. So I took the test 2 more times, choosing different answers each time as a test, and still got the same result.

Same here. I checked a second time with different answers and still the same result.

 

[Psalehesost]

Not completely sure about all questions (answer could be either-or on a few of them), but even taking that into account the second test gives about 50% on left questions and 55%-60% on right questions. So "mixed middle-dominant". I get the sense that the first test linked in this thread does not take mixed or dual orientations on issues into account, meaning that if a "right" trait is strong, then if there is also a corresponding "left" trait, also strong, it cannot be taken into account.

 

[Laura]

It appears you cannot. The second test seems to be more comprehensive- I was not satisified with the first either. However, even based on the second test I am still a right brainer . It seems the first test is just defaulting to left if it is equal. See this part from the second test analysis above in regards to stuck, or mixed hemisphere dominance:

Stuck

If the numbers are about equal, such as 27 on right, and 30 on left, you are mixed middle brain. You use both sides of your brain. It is best if one side of your brain is a little more dominant.

Those who have almost equal scores on the left and right can fall into the stuck mold. The stuck mold is where you can’t move forward. One side of the brain must be dominant or there will be an internal debate to which side of the brain takes lead. For example, one foot must go before the other foot. So, one brain, usually the more dominant, will lead over the less dominant brain. Another example, the organized side of the brain can’t be disorganized at the same time. Or, you can’t edit and free write the same time.

edited : spelling and correction

I think that is hooey too. I got 21 left, 22 right and I can guarantee you that I am never stuck about anything.

 

[EmeraldHope]

It appears you cannot. The second test seems to be more comprehensive- I was not satisified with the first either. However, even based on the second test I am still a right brainer . It seems the first test is just defaulting to left if it is equal. See this part from the second test analysis above in regards to stuck, or mixed hemisphere dominance:

Stuck

If the numbers are about equal, such as 27 on right, and 30 on left, you are mixed middle brain. You use both sides of your brain. It is best if one side of your brain is a little more dominant.

Those who have almost equal scores on the left and right can fall into the stuck mold. The stuck mold is where you can’t move forward. One side of the brain must be dominant or there will be an internal debate to which side of the brain takes lead. For example, one foot must go before the other foot. So, one brain, usually the more dominant, will lead over the less dominant brain. Another example, the organized side of the brain can’t be disorganized at the same time. Or, you can’t edit and free write the same time.

edited : spelling and correction

I think that is hooey too. I got 21 left, 22 right and I can guarantee you that I am never stuck about anything.

Well, then I guess the good thing about this thread is that we have enough feedback to say that these things are a worthless waste of time, lol.

 

[Laura]

That bit about being "stuck" got me to thinking. (Like I said, I'm never stuck about anything.) So, I looked up brain synchrony. Here's a couple things to think about:

Poor Intra-Brain Synchrony May Underlie Autism
http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/41/16/20.1.full

The Cerebral Cortex study supports this supposition. The largest white matter fiber tract in the brain is the corpus callosum, which allows communication between the two sides of the brain. One part of the corpus callosum is the genu. The genu was found to be smaller in the autism group than in the control one, and the smaller the genu in the autism subjects, the more out of sync their frontal and parietal regions were. ...

Meanwhile, Minshew told Psychiatric News that these study results help explain why individuals with autism can be so bright in specialized ways, yet have trouble with problem-solving and understanding the gist of things—they have the local brain connections to perform the former, but not the widespread brain connections to carry out the latter.

Emotion, Thinking, and Brain Synchrony in Schizophrenia: An Integrative Model
http://www.slm-psychiatry.com/mind-brain-the-journal-of-psychiatry/details/article/emotion-thinking-and-brain-synchrony-in-schizophrenia-an-integrative-model/

And so on.

As I have written elsewhere, all areas of my brain seem to be equally accessible to the others. My consciousness is not trapped in separate cognitive domains. I am easily able to transpose genetic natural history, technical and linguistic intelligence into the domain of social intelligence. I think in ways that are described as "cognitively fluid," or so I'm told.

It is said that the use of metaphor is the highest tool of thought and that the most powerful of metaphors are those which cross domain boundaries in the mind. Metaphor is at the heart of art, religion and science.

 

[rs]

I find these kinds of tests "mildly amusing" but when I started to take the test I had a real hard time "making choices". As the first example:

Can you tell approximately how much time passed without a watch?

Um, well it depends.

Speaking in strictly relative terms, is it easier for you to understand

Uh, neither/both.

and so on. The test seems designed to force one to make knee jerk reactions to things (although I admit, my reaction to this does tell you something about me... ;))

 

[EmeraldHope]

That bit about being "stuck" got me to thinking. (Like I said, I'm never stuck about anything.) So, I looked up brain synchrony. Here's a couple things to think about:

Poor Intra-Brain Synchrony May Underlie Autism
http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/41/16/20.1.full

The Cerebral Cortex study supports this supposition. The largest white matter fiber tract in the brain is the corpus callosum, which allows communication between the two sides of the brain. One part of the corpus callosum is the genu. The genu was found to be smaller in the autism group than in the control one, and the smaller the genu in the autism subjects, the more out of sync their frontal and parietal regions were. ...

Meanwhile, Minshew told Psychiatric News that these study results help explain why individuals with autism can be so bright in specialized ways, yet have trouble with problem-solving and understanding the gist of things—they have the local brain connections to perform the former, but not the widespread brain connections to carry out the latter.

Emotion, Thinking, and Brain Synchrony in Schizophrenia: An Integrative Model
http://www.slm-psychiatry.com/mind-brain-the-journal-of-psychiatry/details/article/emotion-thinking-and-brain-synchrony-in-schizophrenia-an-integrative-model/

And so on.

As I have written elsewhere, all areas of my brain seem to be equally accessible to the others. My consciousness is not trapped in separate cognitive domains. I am easily able to transpose genetic natural history, technical and linguistic intelligence into the domain of social intelligence. I think in ways that are described as "cognitively fluid," or so I'm told.

It is said that the use of metaphor is the highest tool of thought and that the most powerful of metaphors are those which cross domain boundaries in the mind. Metaphor is at the heart of art, religion and science.

From your first link, I find this part very interesting:

For example, one of the low-imagery sentences used in the experiment was“ Addition, subtraction, and multiplication are all math skills.” As the control group comprehended this sentence, their left prefrontal cortex was activated. But as the autism group comprehended this sentence, not only their left prefrontal cortex, but their parietal regions were switched on as well.

When I read that sentence, I see : + - and x in my head as I am reading it in order, and then a picture of a math book when I get to math skills. . I am very visual.

Just so there are no misunderstandings, does this mean I may be autisitc? :O


edited for spelling

 

[EmeraldHope]

In addition, I just found this from the Monroe Institute:

_http://www.monroeinstitute.org/journal/the-mysteries-of-hemi-sync-beyond-brain-entrainment/

The phenomenon of bilateral hemispheric synchronization first appeared in studies of advanced meditators approximately thirty years ago. Transcendental meditators, especially, appeared to be able to achieve cortical synchrony after years of practice. However, the frequency at which such synchrony took place was beyond the control of the meditator. Most meditators tend to achieve bilateral synchrony only within a certain uncontrollable frequency range (usually low alpha).

Theoretically, when the two hemispheres function in unison and in synchrony a variety of beneficial effects, both physical and psychological, may ensue. That is why, during the past several years, a number of researchers, clinicians, and entrepreneurs have attempted to develop ways of inducing whole-brain synchrony. Since transcendental meditation takes quite some time to accomplish, and there are no guarantees that it will work, and because the meditation effect appears to be limited to a specific frequency band, more and more people are trying to combine the new and old technologies to attain hemispheric synchrony.

If we add all of this together with Laura's posted links, it would seem that far from being stuck, the more in synch the two sides are the better.


One of my little I's is panicking a little based on all of this info put together.

 

[EmeraldHope]

Now I am wondering if what is going on with my left eye has anything to do with this, since the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body.


http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=19365.0

One other thing that did happen was seeing moving colors in my left eye yeterday, sort of like what you see in windows media player. The colors were bright blue /violet for the most part, with small lines of red and yellow and green. It was very bright when I closed my eyes and centered, but with my eyes open it was just the left eye. I had an experience not too long ago seeing an arking white light out of my left eye. This lasted about the same amount of time as my last experience did, and I could not focus or read or anything while it was happening. It went away and all was normal. I am not rulling out some type of problem physically with my left eye ,though. However, it does seems to happen when something shifts, based on these two experiences of it.

I do not mean to ramble here, I am just trying to piece this togther and need help and feedback in case I am on the wrong track.

 

[Psalehesost]

Now I am wondering if what is going on with my left eye has anything to do with this, since the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body.

If I remember correctly, the right side controls the left side of the field of vision of both eyes, and vice versa. Years since I read it somewhere, though.


Re: moving colors, a bit over one and a half years ago I regularly experienced something that might (?) be related, but not limited to one eye:

I'd think and introspect hard, and become strongly focused, begin to "heat up" [inner sensation in my head] somewhat [...], and my vision would begin to get somewhat "grainy" - tiny, random grains of differing luminosity. This intensifies temporarily and then fades away. I also sometimes see colors - like those seen when squeezing your closed eyes for a bit - overlayed on top of my vision. Mostly a deep blue-ish color, sometimes a bit purple. A few other times I've also seen a yellowish-orangeish tinting of my vision. And sometimes portions of my vision - for example, when I look at my wall - look as if they are slightly "bulging" alternatively (both in time and speaking of adjacent ones) inwards and outwards.

I eventually came to the conclusion that it seemed to be some kind of random artifact of intense brain activity, noise accompanying it. Hasn't occurred as then for a long time now, though.

 

[EmeraldHope]

Now I am wondering if what is going on with my left eye has anything to do with this, since the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body.

If I remember correctly, the right side controls the left side of the field of vision of both eyes, and vice versa. Years since I read it somewhere, though.


Re: moving colors, a bit over one and a half years ago I regularly experienced something that might (?) be related, but not limited to one eye:

I'd think and introspect hard, and become strongly focused, begin to "heat up" [inner sensation in my head] somewhat [...], and my vision would begin to get somewhat "grainy" - tiny, random grains of differing luminosity. This intensifies temporarily and then fades away. I also sometimes see colors - like those seen when squeezing your closed eyes for a bit - overlayed on top of my vision. Mostly a deep blue-ish color, sometimes a bit purple. A few other times I've also seen a yellowish-orangeish tinting of my vision. And sometimes portions of my vision - for example, when I look at my wall - look as if they are slightly "bulging" alternatively (both in time and speaking of adjacent ones) inwards and outwards.

I eventually came to the conclusion that it seemed to be some kind of random artifact of intense brain activity, noise accompanying it. Hasn't occurred as then for a long time now, though.

Thanks for that. You are right brained oriented too from what your tests imply for what ever they are worth. My scoring is a little higher on the right side though. The main thing that concerns me is the quote from what Laura posted and what that may imply even if it isnt autism per se .

The visuals are in the left corner of my left eye when eyes are open so what you say makes sense.



edited spelling

 

[anart]

I think it's important to remember that internet tests are not known for their accuracy, which is why we usually keep them in the 'tickle me' section. I've move this one to that section.

 

[EmeraldHope]

I think it's important to remember that internet tests are not known for their accuracy, which is why we usually keep them in the 'tickle me' section. I've move this one to that section.

Thank you Anart. I did not know that is where they went or I would have put it there to begin with.


And to clarify, I am not concerned about the internet test per se, but mostly with the data Laura pointed out and how my insturment reads non visual sentences which indicates, if I am reading it correctly, that there may be an issue of some kind.

 

[Laura]

And to clarify, I am not concerned about the internet test per se, but mostly with the data Laura pointed out and how my insturment reads non visual sentences which indicates, if I am reading it correctly, that there may be an issue of some kind.

I doubt that it's an issue. Everybody has different thinking modes and styles. It's only when one becomes extreme or extremely dominant, and others don't work at all, that there is a problem.

 

[Buddy]

Just so there are no misunderstandings, does this mean I may be autisitc? :O

Hi EmeraldHope. I'm curious as to why your question is followed by the Jaw Drop smiley? What could you be inferring?

I found this interesting:

Last year, for example, an fMRI study headed by Nancy Minshew, M.D., a professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Pittsburgh, and Marcel Just, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, showed that when individuals with autism attempt to recall letters of the alphabet, their brains process the stimuli differently from the brains of nonautistic individuals. The former[autism] rely more on the parietal regions, which are involved in visuospatial processing, whereas the latter[nonautistic] depend more on the left prefrontal cortex, which is involved in language processing (Psychiatric News, February 4, 2005).
Source: _http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/41/16/20.1.full

Imagine a hypothetical scenario for a moment. Say an individual was born with some kind of natural variation or gene or other defect somewhere in the brain. Also, suppose this 'defect' allowed a hypersensitivity to symbolic or metaphoric precision in comprehension and communication.

What do you think would be likely to happen when this infant is born into an environment of people whose idea of humor is sick jokes, whose idea of truthful interaction is 'avoiding getting caught in a lie" and whose idea of interesting things to do is football games?

Essentially, a potential is squashed before it can even be developed. A young child capable of attaining the highest, non-contradictory levels of abstraction and making marvelous contributions to humanity actually recoils awareness in horror when he finally sees that the beauty and harmony around him is being ignored in favor of a cognitive wallow in mud. Maybe there are "normal" people whose thought processes are so slow and encoded with so many logical fallacies, it appears they just arrived out of the primeval soup. Maybe what the hypersensitive child feels, as some kind of consequence of his evaluative ability, the 'presence of evil' and simply cannot bear it.

How long before it is noticed that his 'left-brain' semantic-associative network is underdeveloped because it was determined (on the deepest cognitive level) to be no longer useful to the child who must now grow up to be one of the "autistics."

It doesn't surprise me that some "autistics" prefer the mechanical and predictable. Those are much easier to 'figure out.'


There is another question I had as well. What if the 'right-brain' / 'left-brain' dominant thingy does not imply what it seems to?

People in my personal social contexts who are 'left-brain dominant' have raved about their verbal/math strengths. Similarly, people often 'rave' about their creativity and emotional insights due to being 'right-brain dominant'. What if the dominant side simply means the stack of inefficiencies is higher on that side?

People who have a dominance may simply have a higher 'noise to signal' ratio in the area of dominance.

While I've never had a problem with the data from any of the brain studies, I often challenge the frame of reference used for the interpretation. The only person I know who has done this in a balanced way (in my estimation) also wrote the Wave.

I have my own combination of stuckages, I know, and I am not sure of my own major malfunction (chief feature) but I consider myself fortunate to have found the Wave and this Work, because I now have a frame of reference that gives me both, a direction to continue growing and learning and a way to know when something is just not right. :)