Cerebral hemisphere

Neurologists also recognize two additional areas of the cerebral cortex:

In most people, the left hemisphere of the human brain dominates, and specialises (in very broad terms) in speech, writing, and language. It is quite unclear that the right hemisphere has equivalent broad associations with spatial abilities, coherent form recognition, and visual face recognition.

Pop psychology and popular myths about the brain simplify these distinctions into very crude binary system whereby a person appears pre-dominantly "left-brained": logical and less "right-brained": creative or vice versa, in order to sell products and prescribe methods for selecting people for specific tasks. For example, the claim that the right hemisphere is creative, whereas the left is not, is, a cornerstone of hemispheric difference mythology, especially as it is applied to management and training. Ned Herrmann, who offers popular and expensive applied creativity work-shops (a half day seminar costs over $2000), bases his program on the assumption that the left brain is logical and the right brain is intuitive, insightful and creative. According to this view, creativity can be enhanced through special training of the right hemisphere. The same line of reasoning has been used to sell courses on mind mapping, speed reading, and psychic development, in addition to expensive machinery for altering brain wave frequency.

Fortunately the neurological sciences can be very helpful in being able to imunize against simplistic pseudoscience claims about brain function, and debunk dubious products and services that are sold using such myths.

The hemispheres operate together, linked by the corpus callosum, a very large bundle of nerve fibers, and also by other smaller commissures, including the anterior commissure.

Reference

• The Emerging Mind; Vilayanur S. Ramachandran; Reith Lectures 2003.