Brain Test for Left or Right Brain Dominance

[EmeraldHope]

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. :)

Let me try to be as honest as possible here in my answer.

What was driving me when I posted the response with the smiley was , like I said, a small i, or maybe more, panicking. Thoughts such as OMG, something may be wrong with me. What if I cannot do the work because of this? What does this imply? I do not want to be autistic ( not that I really think I am) That in and of itself implies that I have a program that thinks that autism is bad, and the ego does not prefer it

On another level, it invokes old feelings of always being different, of processing things differently from those around me and not being understood, and of being highly sensitive. That combined with constant disapproval from my mother for being different was an issue. So I think programs kicked in when I saw autism and that it could in some way be connected to me that ran along the lines of, OMG they were right- it is me. There really is something wrong with me.

Now I tried to quickly put that in check and dig a little deeper, as my inner voice said calm down, you are jumping to conclusions I posted the questions here as I am just really building my knowledge base in this area so I do not have too many reference points yet as far as the brain and how it works goes, and how it directly connects to the work. I also do not want to jump to conclusions. I just started really researching this area this week. I still have many internal questions as far as this goes and I am trying to fill in the gaps.

You make excellent points, and I thank you for taking the time to do that.

Far to much internal considering going on, it would seem. The false personality has an issue with this for sure.

 

[John G]

Left Brain - Right Brain personality tests in general seem to be differentiating NTJ from SFP in Jungian personality terms. Basically if you have a different Jungian personality than what the test uses for left and right, you will get a mixture. Getting "stuck" or autism or enhanced brain connections would seem to be something clinically beyond normal personality (and thus beyond the test).

http://www.businessballs.com/benzigerpersonalityassessment.htm

 

[Buddy]

Actually, EmeraldHope, I only intended to address you with the first question (my bad for the implication that the whole post was directed to you).

The rest was rhetorical, hypothetical (and an unoptimized use of second person address) and intended to just share my thoughts. If you caught any other message, my deepest apologies.

I also need work on External Consideration.

 

[EmeraldHope]

Actually, EmeraldHope, I only intended to address you with the first question (my bad for the implication that the whole post was directed to you).

The rest was rhetorical, hypothetical and intended to just share my thoughts. If you caught any other message, my deepest apologies.

I also need work on External Consideration.

Wow. My brain did not seperate it if that is the case. Especially since towards the bottom you said, and another question I have is.....

Since the first question was aimed at me, and the it was followed later by another question, as in addition to, I assumed it was all directed at me.

 

[Buddy]

I edited my post. An unoptimized use of second person address. I'm used to the passive voice, first person and am retraining myself. :)

 

[EmeraldHope]

I looked at it again and I still would have read it the same way, and I will tell you why. Now this may be just my instrument that is messed up, I am not sure.


After you asked the question, right below it with no space really, you followed it by, I found this interesting......and then a quote

That led me to believe that what came after it was something I should think of in regards to why you asked me the question.


If it was seperate, and not addressed to me and the question you asked, it may go something like this:

On a different note, but related to autism, I found the following interesting.....

Then proceed from there. Im just trying to give you honest feedback. Like I said I may have an instrument error.





edited- spelling

 

[Buddy]

I looked at it again and I still would have read it the same way, and I will tell you why. Now this may be just my instrument that is messed up, I am not sure.


After you asked the question, right below it with no spac ereally you followed it by I found this interesting......and then a quote

That led me to believe that and what came after it was something I should think if in regards to why you asked me the question.


If it was seperate, and not addressed to me and the question you asked, it may go something like this:

On a different not, but related to autism, I found the foloowing interesting.....

Then proceed from there. Im just trying to give you honest feedback. Like I said I may have an instrument error.

You read it correctly, as I see it. The mistake was mine. I saw the same thing you did...that's why I recognized my error.

 

[anart]

You read it correctly, as I see it. The mistake was mine. I saw the same thing you did...that's why I recognized my error.

Maybe one lesson from that could be realizing the beauty of brevity. ;)

 

[Buddy]

Got'cha! :)

 

[EmeraldHope]

Due to some MAJOR recent improvements and realizations, I tried to retake this test to see if there was any difference. I cannot get it to load so I took two different ones. I went from scoring 14 right and 3 left here in my initial post, to now being:


http://testyourself.psychtests.com/testid/3178

Overall Result

58

Both your right and left hemisphere seem to have reached a level of perfect harmony - rather than trying to dominant each other, they work together to create a unique and well-balanced "you". Your spontaneous, impulsive, and free-flowing right brain creates an exciting and adventurous world, while you left brain helps you make sense of it and keep track of everything.
When faced with a problem or a tough decision, you're not only able to break things down and make an informed and sensible choice, but you're also not afraid to go with your gut when necessary. You tend to express your individuality both in words and actions, and although you're perfectly comfortable running on a schedule or planning things ahead of time, there are occasions when you love to throw in a little spontaneity.
Your balanced outlook and approach to life creates a desire in you to not only understand the world, but to also take it in your hands and mold it as you see fit. With both your right and left hemispheres working together to guide you, you are able to understand yourself and life in general from so many wonderful perspectives





And then:


http://mindmedia.com/brainworks/profiler.do

Auditory : 56% Visual : 43% Left : 61% Right : 38%

Oh yay! Go brain plasticsity!!!!! All achieved mainly through working with the Cass material and forum.

 

[kenlee]

When faced with a problem or a tough decision, you're not only able to break things down and make an informed and sensible choice, but you're also not afraid to go with your gut when necessary. You tend to express your individuality both in words and actions, and although you're perfectly comfortable running on a schedule or planning things ahead of time, there are occasions when you love to throw in a little spontaneity.

Regarding the relationship between routines and spontaneity I've found that I often don't have time to recognize and act spontaneously since I'm often too busy rushing about because of the everyday demands of life. I get locked into the routines. What has helped me is to make sure that everything practical that needs to be done is taken care of and then to be prepared for whatever could possibly happen in maybe two to three days in advance. Then, after that, I could relax knowing that I'm as prepared as best as I'm able for what's happening now and for what, in all probability, could happen in the near future. Then I have more 'time' to meet the unexpected and appreciate any spontaneity if it should emerge within the 'routine' framework that's determined by my everyday routines that are often governed by the demands of life.

 

[Buddy]

Due to some MAJOR recent improvements and realizations, I tried to retake this test to see if there was any difference. I cannot get it to load...

In case you're interested, here's the new URL for the test related to your original results:

http://www.web-us.com/brain/braindominance.htm

 

[EmeraldHope]

Due to some MAJOR recent improvements and realizations, I tried to retake this test to see if there was any difference. I cannot get it to load...

In case you're interested, here's the new URL for the test related to your original results:

http://www.web-us.com/brain/braindominance.htm

Thanks Buddy. It will not score score correctly though. I took it 3 times with 3 different answers and got the same score- 0 right and 100% left.

I scored it manually with the key and got 12 R- 10 L off of the key questions, and 10 R - 8 L off of the test questions. ( There were four more questions on the key than on the test)

 

[Buddy]

Due to some MAJOR recent improvements and realizations, I tried to retake this test to see if there was any difference. I cannot get it to load...

In case you're interested, here's the new URL for the test related to your original results:

http://www.web-us.com/brain/braindominance.htm

Thanks Buddy. It will not score score correctly though. I took it 3 times with 3 different answers and got the same score- 0 right and 100% left.

I scored it manually with the key and got 12 R- 10 L off of the key questions, and 10 R - 8 L off of the test questions. ( There were four more questions on the key than on the test)

Well, I don't know the 'why' behind these 'brain dominance' tests anyway. Whatever happened to "handedness", where if you're right-handed it means left-hemispheric dominance and if you're left-handed it means you're right-hemisphere is dominant?

I had a problem completing the test because it aggravates me no end to be unaware of its underlying assumptions. It's also annoying to be able to see connections between question and answer choices that make it harder for me to choose 'one' answer than it apparently does for others.

At any rate, as a child, my Dad was adamant that left-handers needlessly suffered disadvantages in life, so I was forcibly trained to be right-handed. However, if left to my own inclinations, then occasionally, and for no known reason, I will switch and start using my left hand--even to write with, even though I need to deliberately concentrate on the hand movements to write legibly. Heck, I don't even know why I find any of this interesting. :)

 

[EmeraldHope]

Well, I don't know the 'why' behind these 'brain dominance' tests anyway. Whatever happened to "handedness", where if you're right-handed it means left-hemispheric dominance and if you're left-handed it means you're right-hemisphere is dominant?

I had a problem completing the test because it aggravates me no end to be unaware of its underlying assumptions. It's also annoying to be able to see connections between question and answer choices that make it harder for me to choose 'one' answer than it apparently does for others.

At any rate, as a child, my Dad was adamant that left-handers needlessly suffered disadvantages in life, so I was forcibly trained to be right-handed. However, if left to my own inclinations, then occasionally, and for no known reason, I will switch and start using my left hand--even to write with, even though I need to deliberately concentrate on the hand movements to write legibly. Heck, I don't even know why I find any of this interesting. :)

I would have been left handed too. My Nana kept taking objects, pens, and crayons out of my left hand and putting them in my right. I broke my right arm in 4th grade and couldn't use it to right due to the way the cast was, but had no issue doing all of my work with my left. Heck I write sometimes now with my left hand if I really need too but it is on the messy side.

I was just interested here to see if anything had changed, due to recent major life changes. I even retook the Myers Briggs and I went from a INFP to an INTJ. The TJ parts were not real strong yet, but it was enough to change the categories. Now I understand 100% why the forum does not put a lot of stock into these tests. :)