Well-known neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux writes about why the right brain/left brain dichotomy is "wrong-headed"

I have to say I may have found this pop psych right brain/left brain division valid back in my earlier days before I started learning about neuroscience. As I learned more, I drew back when I heard about the popularized right/left brain split. Yesterday neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux posted an easily-understood explanation of the right brain/left brain mythology at Why the "Right Brain" Idea is Wrong-Headed (Huffington Post).

Excerpt:

As someone who studies the brain and also tries to disseminate information about the brain in a user-friendly, but scientifically accurate, way, I cringe when I read some pop accounts of brain research. For example, I recently saw this CNN headline: "Will right-brainers rule this century?" Clicking on the link took me to OPRAH.com, which promised, less hesitantly, to explain "Why right-brainers will rule this century." At least CNN considered the possibility that there was some question about the veracity of the statement. Oprah's headline implied it's a done deal.

The current right brain craze was triggered by Daniel Pink's best selling book, A Whole New Mind. In the interview with Oprah, Pink, a former speech writer for Al Gore, says "in many

professions, what used to matter most were abilities associated with the left side of the brain: linear, sequential, spreadsheet kind of faculties. Those still matter, but they're not enough. What's important now are the characteristics of the brain's right hemisphere: artistry, empathy, inventiveness, big-picture thinking. These skills have become first among equals in a whole range of business fields." Oprah bought 4500 copies.

Pink's basic premise is absolutely correct: that there are multiple ways of thinking and that social institutions (schools, businesses, etc) have tended to overemphasize verbal skills and linear thought in the past. But this is hardly a new idea. ...

Each year I attend a number of neuroscience conferences. This year, for example, I've been to meetings in Spain, Israel, France, England, as well in a variety of regions in the US. In all these conferences, I can't recall a single instance where one of my colleagues used the term "right brain" or "left brain." These are pop neuroscience oversimplifications.

As with so much of this popularized "neuroscience," I say give me a break—but not the supposed break between the left and right brain.

Comments

[Todd I. Stark]

Also see Bob Ornstein's excellent non-technical book "The Right Mind: Making Sense of the Hemispheres."

Ornstein's early work "The Psychology of Consciousness" was one of the classics of speculative left-right brain lore. In his later book he reaffirmed the legitimate neuroscientific interest in mammalian hemisphere speciallization, while recanting the emphasis on "logical" and "creative" hemispheres that pop psychology had since adopted.

It was probably too late to change the embedded way popular culture now views the hemispheres, but it was a gallant effort. We will probably be stuck with the "creative right hemisphere" myth for a while, obscuring the more complex and interesting real speciallizations of the various systems on each side of the brain.