Brainana Split
Here's One Excuse for Blowing that Science Test (Sort Of)
By Maggie Gusman
Before you take this super-official, high-tech psychology quiz, it's very important that you know two rules:
- If you disagree with the results, trust yourself. You know you best.
- Have fun doing this - it's not like you're getting a grade, or anything!
Do you ever get the feeling that your brain is wired a little bit differently from everyone else's? If so, there's no need to take your noodle back to the manufacturer and demand a refund. What you have is referred to as "brainana split" - but not in any scientific communities that we could find. This does not mean that your head is full of ice cream, syrup and whipped cream (although it gives new meaning to an ice cream headache!), but rather your mind has two halves to it, and they both have very important, very specific tasks.
Over the years, doctors have learned that people who suffer from brain damage in a certain area seem to lose the ability to do certain things. By observing what a patient could and could not do, they found out that the left side of the brain tends to control logic, reasoning and verbal skills. On the other hand, the right side takes care of a person's creativity - as well as the ability to perceive objects and ideas as "whole," instead of in parts. (Now, if this was a real test, you'd have to know stuff like the right and left halves are actually called hemispheres, and that the two sides are connected by this system of fibers called the corpus callosum).
The funny thing is that the right and left side of your brain controls the opposite side of your body. So, if you're right-handed, your body is controlled mostly by the left side of your brain, and vice versa. Therefore, if the left half of your brain is hurt, you could hold an object in your right hand and describe it, but you couldn't name it! If your right half was the one in trouble, you could draw with your left hand, but not be able to write! What's even weirder is that the different aspects of your personal style aren't really controlled by whether you are right-handed or left-handed. You could be a left-thinking leftie by the time you get done with this quiz!
While this may explain why we do some of the things we do, it's important to remember that completely favoring one particular side of your brain means that the other is totally useless and inactive - and that is purely impossible. Your brain, after all, has some pretty important biological functions to take care of, so even though we can attribute some of our likes, dislikes or talents to a certain portion of our gray matter, it's the whole big brain that really makes us who we are.
Read through the quiz statements and mark "Like Me" if the sentence describes you pretty well, or mark "Not Like Me" if it doesn't really sound like you. Then, look at the two answer tables and give yourself one point if you marked "Like Me" for those questions listed. After that, add up your "Rightie" and "Leftie" totals and read your results!
