Throughout history it has been accepted that human beings are all different in their own way with our own physical make-up, fingerprints, DNA, facial features, character and personality. It was not until the mid 20th century that it was realised that each one of us has two sides to our brain, each of which has quite different functions and characteristics.  

The cerebral cortex has two halves, called hemispheres, which are almost identical. These two brain hemispheres are connected by a bridge of millions of nerve fibres called the corpus callosum which allows them to communicate with each other. The left side of the brain connects to the right side of the body, while the right side of the brain connects to the left side. 

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 can be summarised as follows:  

Left-hemisphere
Parsing, logic, conscious thought, outer awareness, methods, rules, written language, number skills, reasoning, scientific skills, aggression, sequential, verbal intelligence, intellectual, analytical.

Right-hemisphere
Holistic, intuition, subconscious thought, inner awareness, creativity, insight, three-dimensional forms, imagination, music, art, passive, simultaneous, practical intelligence, sensuous, synthetic.

While some individuals may be heavily weighted towards a particular hemisphere, this does not mean they are predominant in every one of that particular hemisphere’s skills, since no-one is entirely left or right-brained. The importance to each of us of accessing both hemispheres of the brain is considerable. 

Before the subconscious of the right-hand hemisphere can function, it needs the fuel, or data, that has been fed into, collated and processed by the left-hand hemisphere. 

One danger is the overburdening of the left-hand hemisphere with too much data with the result that the creative side of the brain cannot function to its full potential. Conversely if there is a lack of data being fed into the left-hand hemisphere the creative side or right-hand hemisphere can dry up. 

It is, therefore, desirable to strike the right balance between right and left hemispheres in order for the brain to work to its full potential.

Because it is under-used, much creative talent in many people remains untapped throughout life. Until we try, most of us never know what we can actually achieve. We all have a creative side to our brain; therefore, we should all have the potential to be creative. However many of us never have the time or opportunity, or indeed are given the encouragement, to explore our latent talents, even though most of us have sufficient ammunition to realize this potential in the form of data which has been fed into, collated and processed by the brain during our lifetime. 

Like many other tasks, or pleasures, we never know what we can achieve until we try. By cultivating new leisure activities and pursuing new pastimes it is possible for each of us to explore the potential and often vastly under-used parts of the human brain.

Adapted from The Complete Book of Intelligence Tests by Philip J. Carter; published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd in 2005 as part of The IQ Workout Series

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They will find it easier to process the information and therefore more likely to perform the task.

Scientists believe it is because information heard by the right ear is processed by the left side of the brain which is more logical and better at making sense of requests than the right.

A team led by Dr Luca Tommasi and Daniele Marzoli from the University of Chieti in central Italy, addressed 176 people in either the right or left ear when asking for a cigarette in a nightclub.

They obtained significantly more cigarettes when they made their request in a person’s right ear.

Their findings are reported online in the journal Naturwissenschaften.

By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent, The Daily Telegraph

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