Brain Differences

Creativity and the Right Side of the Brain

text by Michael P Pitek, III
The Performance Group

Where does creativity come from? How can one person be so creative and another person appear to be uncreative? The source of creativity really stems back to the brain. Prior to the beginning of the twentieth century little was actually known about the brain. In the late 1950's and early 1960's some significant research was conducted by Roger Sperry. Sperry's work, which later earned him the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1981, clearly showed that the brain is divided into two major parts or hemispheres, the right brain and the left brain. His research also identified that each of the parts of the brain specializes in its own style of thinking and has different capabilities.

The Left Brain
The left brain is associated with verbal, logical, and analytical thinking. It excels in naming and categorizing things, symbolic abstraction, speech, reading, writing, arithmetic. The left brain is very linear: it places things in sequential order -- first things first and then second things second, etc. If you reflect back upon our own educational training, we have been traditionally taught to master the 3 R's: reading, writing and arithmetic -- the domain and strength of the left brain.

The Right Brain
The right brain, on the other hand, functions in a non-verbal manner and excels in visual, spatial, perceptual, and intuitive information. The right brain processes information differently than the left brain. For the right brain, processing happens very quickly and the style of processing is nonlinear and nonsequential. The right brain looks at the whole picture and quickly seeks to determine the spatial relationships of all the parts as they relate to the whole. This component of the brain is not concerned with things falling into patterns because of prescribed rules. On the contrary, the right brain seems to flourish dealing with complexity, ambiguity and paradox. At times, right brain thinking is difficult to put into words because of its complexity, its ability to process information quickly and its non-verbal nature. The right brain has been associated with the realm of creativity.

Balancing a Checkbook
Take the activity of balancing your checkbook. The left brain engages in a very systematic, sequential and exact approach to getting the job done. The left brain strives for accuracy in making sure the balance balances. If the right brain were in charge of this activity, the right brain would probably be content to round up or down to the nearest dollar amount: an approach that is unacceptable to the left brain.

Driving in Traffic
Now let's consider another activity: driving on the interstate. This is clearly the domain of the right brain: spatial relationships, the ability to process information quickly, and to see the whole picture from all of the parts. If the left brain were in charge here, you would probably hear something like this: "Now the truck is approaching on the right entrance ramp at a speed of approximately 35 miles per hour, while the white sports car is approaching in the left lane, at 70 miles per hour, swerving slighting in and out of the right lane, and up ahead is a slowly moving car, traveling about 20 miles per hour, that keeps putting on its break lights every ten or fifteen seconds……" As you can tell, this style of processing information is too slow. The right brain takes over and quickly assesses what has to be done and reacts accordingly.

The Whole Brain
As we develop our creative skills we must also develop our ability to suspend the left brain and to release the right. The ultimate goal for all of us is to approach our life and our work using a "whole" brain approach. We can't make the mistake of thinking that the left and right brains are two totally separate entities within our bodies. They are connected and do have areas of overlap. An integrated "whole" brain approach begins to maximize the untapped potential of the human brain

text source: This Week in Innovation
images source: U.S. National Library of Medicine
Nos. A013508, A016440
see Graphics note

Doug's comments

How is the brain structured? How do the parts work together? A lot of research supports the idea that the brain has two sides. They control different modes of thinking. We need both and use both, but most humans have a preference for one side or the other. Some people, more whole-brained, are equally adept at both modes.

Personally, my right and left brains are at war with each other most of the time. My teaching style certainly appeals to the right side of your brain. Your left side finds me hopelessly disorganized and not very helpful.

This course web reflects that struggle. If I'm going to get anything done, my right brain has to take a hike. If I'm going to make any progress, it has to prevail.

I teach to your right brain to try to balance the huge prejudice that education has toward your left brain. That means more systems thinking: patterns, metaphors, analogies, role-playing, visuals. It means less true-false, multiple-choice. It also means new forms of assessment that honor right-brained talents and skills.

For example, the second presentation that you make this module will be stronger because of the formative, right-brain assessment that we'll do after the first.

Ways of Knowing

These lists extend Michael Pitek's above. They are not black and white alternatives. They are ends of a gradual continuum that I shift along. A mind map might stretch these as the diameters of a circle, place dots where my behavior falls, and gradually build a portrait of my way of knowing. Feel free to add your own ideas.

Graphics note

The head resting on the arm engraving comes from Sir Charles Bell's (1774-1842) The Brain Exposed From Above (London: Longman and Rees, 1802). The other two images were on the same engraved plate in Thomas Geminus's (d. 1562) The Brain (Londini: Joanni Herfordie, 1545). I found them with the Images from the History of Medicine search engine.

I cleaned up the images and reduced the file sizes with Paint Shop Pro.

On the above scales, where do you recognize yourself?

Roughly forty percent of people are primarily visual learners, forty percent primarily verbal learners, and twenty percent primarily kinesthetic learners. To the extent that marketing is teaching consumers about the features and benefits of a product or service, how might you take into account their range of learning styles?

last update: July 22, 2000
http://toLearn.net/marketing/brain.htm