researchers debunk myth of "right brain" or "left brain" personality traits

[Lemon Drop]

I'm glad to see this.

http://healthcare.utah.edu/publicaffairs...raits.html


http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Ado...ne.0071275

[mrbigstuff]

"newly released" hmm.

I am quite sure I read an article with a very similar conclusion a couple of years ago (maybe in the New Yorker?)

[Dennis S]

It took scientists a long time to figure that out since, as everyone knows, we only use 10% of our brain.

[JoeH]

Single study? Will have to see if it holds up in other studies.

[DeusxMac]

mrbigstuff wrote:
"newly released" hmm.

I am quite sure I read an article with a very similar conclusion a couple of years ago (maybe in the New Yorker?)

You're correct.

Don't know about New Yorker article, but this conclusion was reached a several years ago. It just takes time to filter from the professional journals into the general media.

[Lemon Drop]

DeusxMac wrote:
[quote=mrbigstuff]
"newly released" hmm.

I am quite sure I read an article with a very similar conclusion a couple of years ago (maybe in the New Yorker?)

You're correct.

Don't know about New Yorker article, but this conclusion was reached a several years ago. It just takes time to filter from the professional journals into the general media.

This is brand new research, just published 8/14/13. I'd love to see more research on this, specifically using neuroimaging and "whole-brain lateralization."

So if you have a link to an older study I'd be very interested. I'm not finding anything by googling.
The scientists who did this study say it's groundbreaking for some reason.

As a leftie I find all this interesting -

[kj]

The fact is, a majority of serious researchers have always thought the right/left brain personality stuff is bunk. But people like the idea so much researchers probably feel the need to put a nail in the coffin. The bottom line is that if people behave differently, there is going to be a correlate in the neurological substrate that shows this. But the idea one side of the brain is "stronger" than the other never made much sense (probably goes back to the silliness of phrenology). kj.

[eustacetilley]

Oh well. I guess that this means the old story, that due to a hospital mixup, my left side and right side brains were switched at birth, which explains everything, doesn't really explain anything at all.
There are other explanations, and even treatments, but like Dorothy Parker, I would prefer a free bottle in front of me to a prefrontal lobotomy.

Eustace

[particleman]

Now all we have left to differentiate a brain's personality is male and female.