Right Brain/Left Brain
August 9, 2008 by Lillie
I saw a link on Robin Lee Hatcher’s Write Thinking to this test to determine whether you use your left brain or your right brain most.
The right brain relates to creativity, the left brain to logic and organization. Writing requires right brain usage; editing requires left brain usage. I enjoyed taking the test and found the results interesting. You may want to check it out for yourself.
Here is the summary of my results:
Lillie, you are somewhat left-hemisphere dominant with a balanced preference for auditory and visual inputs. Because of your “centrist” tendencies, the distinctions between various types of brain usage are somewhat blurred.
Your tendency to be organized and logical and attend to details is reasonably well-established which should afford you success regardless of your chosen field of endeavor, unless it requires total spontaneity and ability to improvise, your weaker traits. However, you are far from rigid or overcontrolled. You possess a degree of individuality, perceptiveness, and trust in your intuition to function at much more sophisticated levels than most.
Having given sufficient attention to detail, you can readily perceive the larger aspects and implications of a situation or of learning. You are functional and practical, but can blend abstraction and theory into your framework readily.
The equivalence of your auditory and visual learning orientation gives you two equally effective sensory input systems, each with distinctive features. You can process both unidimensionally and multidimen- sionally with equal facility. When needed, you sequence material while at other times you “intake it all” and store it for processing later.
Your natural ability to use your senses is also synthesized in your way of learning. You can be reflective in your approach, absorbing material in a non-aggressive manner, and at other times voracious in seeking out stimulation and experience.
Overall you tend to be somewhat more critical of yourself than is necessary and avoid enjoying life too much because of a sense of duty. You feel somewhat constrained and tend to sometimes restrict your expressiveness. In any given situation, you will opt for the rational, and learning of almost any type should be easy for you. You might need certain ideas explained to you in order to fit them into your scheme of things, but you’re at least open to that!
This pretty well describes me. Let us know in comments if your results describe you well.
Hmmm. I took the test and my profile wasn’t all that accurate. It got some things right (my love for learning, my creative side, and a tendency to overcommit) but several things were way off base (others perceiving me as “off balance”, being disorganized, being a “dreamer”). I can’t put a lot of stock in this one.
Jasia,
Seems that none of these things work for everyone. The writer whose blog post that led me to the test said it captured her very well, and I was surprised at how accurate it was for me. Yet it wasn’t right for you. Since we don’t need to use this information, it’s just fun to take the test and see what it says.
Lillie, this is very very interesting article. Just I wonder every time when I open your blog. I took the test too and I`ll share with you after that because I really like your blog and posts. I am blogger too and I know it`s not easy to write. Respect!
A. Smith,
I’m interested to hear your results and see if you think they are accurate. I appreciate you as a reader and commenter!
If is a person is left-handed then everything is the other way around.
Lokys last blog post..About Death Knights and Hunter Expotic Pets
Loky,
Hmm … I don’t know the relation of being left-handed to being left-brained.
This was mine.
” Your Brain Usage Profile:
Auditory : 47%
Visual : 52%
Left : 72%
Right : 27%
So I think that I am not going to create anything.
It looks like you’re a better candidate to be an accountant than a writer. That’s great—we need a combination of many occupations and talents, and yes, brain usage, for society to work.
This is something that I’ve always found fascinating. I’ve taken similar tests in the past that turned out to be pretty accurate. As soon as I get a chance I’ll take this test and come back and let you know how I feel about the results.
Jason,
I look forward to seeing how you feel about your results. These kinds of tests always intrigue me.
Interesting test, Lillie. I’ve often wondered about my left/right brain tendencies, as I have no aptitude at all for math or science but don’t have a creative bone in my body. This test gave me some good insight, until it got to the career suggestions–I am totally geared toward sociology, psychology, social work, etc., and they think I’d be good as a scientist. But I think that’s my dichotomous brain coming into play–I don’t clearly fit into either category. Maybe that’s why at the age of 40 I’m still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up!
Well, the test was close—it should have said SOCIAL scientist instead of scientist.
My wife and I both took the test and we both felt that the results were fairly accurate (about our own as well as one another’s).
There were some things on mine that I didn’t feel was completely accurate, but overall I thought it was pretty good. I posted about it on my site to see if I get any feedback from people I know.
Jason,
Thanks for letting me know. I was intrigued to see you are 50% left brain and 50% right brain—can’t get more balanced than that!
I took the test and it said that I had a lot of left brained tendencies. I was surprised though to find out how many right brained tendencies I have also. I thought I was straight left brained. Guess I didn’t realize how I have changed over the years.
Jesse,
That’s interesting that you have changed through the years and also that you didn’t realize how many right-brain tendencies you had. It sounds like you recognized that, though, when you saw the results of the test.
Lillie,
Here are my results:
Your Brain Usage Profile:
Auditory : 50%
Visual : 50%
Left : 42%
Right : 57%
I found my results quite interesting, since I’ve always considered myself highly left-brain dominant. Some of the characteristics mentioned in my summary didn’t seem totally accurate, while others were right on the money. Of course, it’s always possible that, though I’m one of the most detail-oriented and analytical people I know (left-brain traits), I may just have begun developing more of an affinity for the “big picture” (right brain trait) than I’ve ever had before. I’ll certainly have to give these results a bit more thought — or should I say analysis?
Jeanne
Jeanne,
You’re such a good writer that you have to be strong in creativity. You’re the second person who has commented that they think their right-brand usage has become stronger. Maybe that indicates that we can enhance our creativity by doing creative things like writing.
Thanks, Lillie!
I think you’re right that we can enhance our creativity by doing creative things. And, while all writing is, to varying degrees, creative, the type of writing we do probably has a lot to do with whether we enhance our left- or right-brain characteristics. For example, technical or other analytical types of writing would likely strengthen our left-brain characteristics (as would editing), whereas poetry, fiction, or creative non-fiction would tend to enhance our right-brain traits — wouldn’t you think?
Jeanne,
I think you’re right that fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction enhance the right brain more than technical writing. However, I think even technical and analytical writing is creative, though to a lesser extent than “creative” writing. It probably does tend to enhance the left brain more, though, since it’s heavier on analysis and organization than creativity.
Great article, I think that having a good balance between both the analytical and the spontaneous is what makes for successful creative workers (especially deadline oriented workers such as writers!)
Suz,
Good point that writers need a good balance of right and left brain. We tend to think of writing as creative, but there are a lot of analytical and organizational skills needed to be successful.
I agree with you on both counts!
Jeanne,
Great minds think alike.
So I’ve heard!
Jeanne,
Are you trying to see how long this thread can become?
Why not?
Jeanne,
No reason why not …
I thought not.
Any more of this conversation will have to wait until tomorrow. I’m calling it a day … I’ve been working for 21 hours (with breaks only for breakfast and lunch) so I’m done in!
Good-night, Lillie!
After putting in that many hours, you deserve it!
Signing off,
Jeanne
Jeanne,
After putting in that many hours, I deserve to have my head examined. I am NOT going to do this any more! Just because clients are in a rush because they put things off to the last minute doesn’t mean I should work myself to death. … Remind me of this the next time I get a rush project.
Good for you, Lillie, for both realizing that and making up your mind to change it! It’s definitely not worth killing ourselves just to complete a writing project!
Lillie, the next time you get a rush project, don’t work yourself to death just because a client… (Oh, was I supposed to wait until you actually got another rush project? Sorry! Guess I figured I’d get a head start, since I probably won’t even know about it when you do get your next rush project.)
By the way, I recently completed another left/right-brain test, which very nearly confirmed my results on the test you recommended. I came out “middle-brained” but borderline right-brained.
Of course, as you can well imagine, I wasn’t totally happy with the black-and-white nature of the questions–are we ever?–many of which I might very well have answered differently, creating different results. With many of the questions I believed one of the following to be true:
1) A third answer would have been more correct than either of the two answers provided.
2) My answer really fell somewhere between the two extremes.
3) I might answer one way in one circumstance and another way in a different circumstance.
I did find it interesting, though, that I scored at the upper limit of the “middle-brain” range and that a single question I had vascillated on would have placed me into the very bottom of the right-brain range, had I answered it the way I’d felt I should have.
This seems to confirm my notion that my creative, intuitive (right-brain) side may be growing more developed, despite my strong and long-standing detail-orientation and analytical (left-brain) tendencies. (Or perhaps I’ve been just as creative all along, but always noticed and more-often utilized my left-brain tendencies more?) My score on the other test tends to confirm my results on your test, which indicate that I’m moderately right-brained.
Extremely fascinating topic!
Jeanne
Jeanne,
Thanks for the reminder not to work myself to death on rush projects. It was a timely reminder, too. I had rush projects from two clients come in last night and today. I told them I would do them if I could finish them tonight … but I’m not working on Sunday for them. I’ve finished one of them and can probably finish the other, but if I don’t get finished … it’s the client’s problem, not mine!
The right brain/left brain business is really fascinating. It’s interesting to see that you had similar results on two tests, indicating that’s a pretty accurate description of you. I agree on those questions where neither answer is right. But it appears that the test designers know what they’re doing because the results seem to be accurate even when we think the answer doesn’t make sense. You may have always been more creative than you realized because you used your left brain more in the things you’ve done, but it’s likely that you are also developing your right brain more by what you’re doing now.
I’m proud of you, Lillie, for following through on your promise not to work yourself to death! Glad I was able to provide such a “timely reminder” even though I didn’t realize my reminder happened to come at just the right time. How did everything work out with those two rush projects, by the way? Hope all went well.
Jeanne,
It’s a constant challenge. I have one client that I do some administrative work for as well as writing/editing. She was one of my first customers and I’ve worked with her for many years—I bill her monthly for the hours I’ve worked for her in the past month, and that is often 80 to 100 hours. That’s a lot for one client. Her business is growing at an incredible rate so she has rush projects for me several times a week. I can almost always accommodate her, but I told her that for the next two months I’m going to set aside time to promote my novel, and I won’t be as readily available.
That was an interesting test. It seemed fairly accurate for me.
Auditory : 71%
Visual : 28%
Left : 62%
Right : 37%
“Teaching, law, and science are those that stand out among the professions, along with technical sales and management.”
Sounds about right.
It’s always interesting to see if these things really are accurate. Most of the people who take this one seem to think it’s pretty close.
It’s interesting that everybody is born with ALL creative talents but we’re “de-educated” when it comes to our more creative and intuitive abilities. We live in a culture that supposedly values reason and ‘hard nosed common sense’ and therefore we cease to appreciate that which can’t be empirically tested. Other cultures have greatly valued this connection to something greater than ourselves. With all the problems that are facing us today, we surely do need a higher level of thinking.
Sydney,
I certainly agree that we need a connection to something greater than ourselves.
this is very very interesting article. Just I wonder every time when I open your blog. I took the test too and I`ll share with you after that because I really like your blog and posts. I am blogger too and I know it`s not easy to write.
I’ll be interested to see your results of the test and whether you think it is accurate.
My wife and i took the exam. We found the result fairly accurate and quite interesting. And seeing the result of the test of my wife’s test made me understand more why she acts that way. Thanks for this post!
Tom,
I’m glad you and your wife found the test accurate and useful. Most people seem to have that result.
i already took the test..I’m an artist and a dancer but it says I’m more on left hemisphere..I don’t know exactly how reliable is it..^_^
scarlet,
I’m not sure how reliable it is, either, but it’s fun.