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

Photo courtesy of brain_blogger

“It was set by Mensa and it took about 30 minutes which fitted nicely with my dinner hour,” he recalls. “I ended up scoring fairly highly.”

Philip sent for a home test and then went on to do a supervised test. “I was really pleased to pass that,” he said. “And when I joined Mensa I signed up for Enigma SIG, because of the puzzles. I had never designed a puzzle in my life but I did a little grid puzzle and sent it to Ken Russell, who was then editor of the SIG. He liked it and he used it not just in Enigma but also in the Mensa Journal.” Suitably encouraged, Philip sent in more puzzles – all of which Ken liked and used. “He was very encouraging,” Philip recalls. “And then one day he said I should collect a few examples of my puzzles and send them out to publishers who might be interested in doing a book.” The rest, as they say, is history. Philip’s first collection, Take The IQ Challenge, was published in 1986. Philip and Ken, who at the time was Mensa’s puzzles editor, went on to write countless books together and, since Ken’s sad death, Philip has written many more under his own name, the latest of which, Perfect Brain Training, has just been published by Random House,

Did he expect, back when that first book was published that he would go on to sell hundreds of thousands of books?

“Did I ’eck,” he says his in his
native Yorkshire accent. “I thought it would sell
500 copies and disappear from the shelves.”

In fact it went on to be reprinted 20 times and would, like others, be sold around the world. So, what, we asked Philip, makes the perfect puzzle. “I don’t know!” he replied with a laugh. “I think it is when someone cannot solve it but when
they look at the answer they kick themselves.”

Philip is not surprised by the new-found popularity of puzzles, brain-training games and other ‘brain work out’ regimes.

 “They are in vogue and in such demand now because I think people
have finally realised something that I have been
saying for the last 20 years – that the brain needs to
be exercised, to be trained, every bit as much as
other parts of the body.”

While Philip agrees that a person’s natural IQ cannot be increased, he believes that you can improve your IQ test scores by practising the kind of problems you will face in the tests – which is why, he believes, many of his IQ-testing books have proved so popular. And, he adds, improving your IQ scores could help you find a top job – as many companies today use IQ testing as part of their recruitment process. In fact Philip himself has been asked to devise just such tests for employers – and, on one occasion for the reality television programme Big Brother (and yes, he was fully aware of the irony of having IQ tests on BB house mates). “The interesting thing about that,” he adds, “is that there was a pair of twins in that series and I expected them to score roughly equally – but one scored much more highly than the other.” Still living in the Huddersfield area where he was born, Philip is today retired from his ‘day job’ in the export sales office of a Yorkshire engineering company – and enjoying well-earned time on his favourite hobby of gardening.

To buy books by Philip Carter or other puzzle & IQ books, click here.