The Complete Book of Intelligence Tests
a broader and more in-depth understanding of the concept under examination. In the early 1960s, Sperry and his team showed by a series of experiments, first using animals whose corpus callosum had been severed, and then on human patients whose corpus callosum had been severed in an attempt to cure epilepsy, that each of the two hemispheres has developed specialised functions and has its own private sensations, perceptions, ideas and thoughts, all separate from the opposite hemisphere. As their experiments continued, Sperry and his team were able to reveal much more about how the two hemispheres were specialised to perform different tasks. The left side of the brain is analytical and functions in a sequential and logical fashion and is the side which controls language, academic studies and rationality. The right side is creative and intuitive and leads, for example, to the birth of ideas for works of art and music. The contrasting right- and left-hemisphere functions, sometimes referred to as ‘laterality’, can be summarised as follows: Left hemisphere
Right hemisphere
Parsing Logic Conscious thought Outer awareness Methods, rules Written language Number skills Reasoning Scientific skills Aggression Sequential Verbal intelligence Intellectual Analytical
Holistic Intuition Subconscious thought Inner awareness Creativity Insight Three-dimensional forms Imagination Music, art Passive Simultaneous Practical intelligence Sensuous Synthetic
The meaning of the word ‘lateral’ is of or relating to the side, away from the median axis. The term ‘laterality’ ^ or ‘sidedness’ ^ is used to 86