The black and white dichotomy of left and

right brain thinking can be

a compelling way to think about our
own inherent skill sets and personality
traits.
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Popular thinking suggests that left brain
thinkers are logical, detail and fact
oriented,
linear, analytical, and a lot of
other traits associated with Type A
personalities.
In contrast, right brain thinkers are free
spirits, open,
non linear, imaginative, non verbal and of
course, creative.
But where does the concept of left and
right brain thinking really come
from, and is there any truth to this left
and right brain dominance?
Can we really compartmentalize creativity
into functions of one half of our brain,
and can we improve ourselves by thinking
about the skill sets in this way?
Since the age of antiquity, it was often
believed that the left side of the brain
was
the dominant one because it was on the
left side of the body, same as the heart.
During the 1800s, a lot of experiments
were done
that gave evidence to suggest that this
was true.
In general the left hemisphere controls
language, processing sound and speech
control.
At the time, this was believed to mean
that the left was actually dominant.
It wasn't until the 1950s that a professor
named Roger Sperry developed
a set of experiments that showed this left
dominant view was flawed.
Sperry's research involved epileptic
patients who had undergone surgery to
remove the nerve fibers connecting the two
hemispheres of the brain.
The experiments revealed that the right
hemisphere was actually dominant when it
came
to certain tasks, such as interpreting
emotions and facial expressions, and
recognizing patterns.
It wasn't long after these experiments
that the
concept of a left and right dichotomy, a
clear cut division between hemispheres of
the brain
and the relation to our skills set, became
popularized.
Several factors contributed to this.

With the rise of self help books,

it became easy to compartmentalize
personality traits.
Educational models became tailored to
learning styles.
Right brain thinking became heavily
associated with artistic
endeavors in the public eye with the
popular
book, Drawing on the Right Side of the
Brain by an art instructor named Betty
Edwards.
Now what the right hemisphere of the brain
really does is take charge
of spatial perceptions to help you make
sense of the world around you.
Drawing on the right side of the brain
really means to draw what you see.
It means to develop a new way of
translating your visual sense into your
tactile sense.
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The left side of the brain is in
charge of retrieving facts and pulling
things from memory.
In the case of drawing, drawing from the
left side of the
brain means representation through symbols
of
objects, rather than drawing what you see.
So in reality, a skill like drawing can
depend on both sides of the brain.
This is true for other fields.
Take math, which is often considered a
left brain activity.
Certain tasks, like counting, are
performed by
the left side of the brain, while
others, such as estimating and applying
real
world problems, are done by the right.
Which means that both skills, in math
and drawing, require both hemispheres to
work properly.
There really is no logical or creative
side.
A recent major study of the University of
Utah confirms this.
They found no physical evidence that we
are either left or right brain dominant.
We use both equally for a variety of
tasks.
This is linked in the suggested readings.
In Daniel Pink's book, A Whole New Mind,
another one of your
recommended readings for this course, he
discusses a concept he calls symphony.
This is the ability to put together the
pieces, see relationships between
seemingly unrelated fields, to deduct

broad patterns, or to invent something new

through a
combination of elements no one else
thought to pair.
This ability is crucial to creativity and
depends on your entire brain to work.
So what does being able to see
relationships and make
connections between seemingly unrelated
things really have to do with creativity?
Creativity researcher Csikszentmihalyi,
another one of your recommended readings,
sums up creativity's origins as crossing
boundaries of domains.
The ability to make big leaps and see the
whole picture
is a common trait of highly innovative
people with game changing ideas.
So in short, thinking about creativity as
a right
brain dominant activity, or only a
artistic endeavor, or limiting
yourself to thinking that you are only a
left
bran thinker, are all detrimental to your
actual creative skill.
Observing details, organizing facts and
pieces of a whole, and
maintaining a realistic outlook while
frequently maintaining a view of
the big picture with potential outcomes,
as well as working
in a consistently stimulating environment,
and finding outlets for your imagination.
These are all key to creative skill in any
domain,
and require a holistic outlet to how our
minds really work.