Left-brain versus right-brain. Two hemispheres - two types of thinking Imaginative thinking hemisphere

Sections: School psychological service

Right-hemisphere people do not see individual trees behind the forest, and left-hemisphere people do not see the forest behind individual trees.
B. White

The theory of functional asymmetry of the cerebral hemispheres has been actively developing over the past decades; considerable theoretical and practical material has been accumulated. However, in the practical work of preschool institutions and schools, data on the individual profile of the functional asymmetry of the child's brain are rarely taken into account. The fundamentals of functional specialization of the cerebral hemispheres are innate. As the child develops, the mechanisms of interhemispheric asymmetry become more complex.

There are several types of functional organization of the two hemispheres of the brain:

dominance of the left hemisphere - the verbal and logical nature of cognitive processes, a tendency to abstract and generalize (left hemisphere people);
dominance of the right hemisphere - concrete-figurative thinking, developed imagination (right hemisphere people);
the absence of a pronounced dominance of one of the hemispheres (equal hemisphere people).

Left hemisphere type - the dominance of the left hemisphere determines the tendency to abstraction and generalization, the verbal and logical nature of cognitive processes. The left hemisphere operates with words, conventional signs and symbols; responsible for writing, counting, the ability to analyze, abstract, conceptual thinking. In this case, the information received in the left hemisphere is processed sequentially, linearly and slowly. Perception of left-hemispheric people is discrete, auditory, intelligence is verbal, theoretical, memory is arbitrary. Introverts. For successful activity, the following conditions must be met: analysis of details, repeated repetition of material, silence, work alone, timeless tasks. They are characterized by a high need for mental activity.

For the formation of motivation for educational activity in left-brain children, it is necessary to focus on cognitive motives. They are attracted by the very process of assimilating knowledge. They are characterized by a high need for constant mental activity. The social motive is the motive for continuing education. Classes in school sciences are seen as a means of developing their thinking.

It is easier for the left hemisphere to write than to dictate. Among the left brain are engineers, mathematicians, philosophers, linguists. The left hemisphere is often emphatically rational and rational. They write a lot and willingly, they easily memorize long texts, their speech is grammatically correct. They are characterized by a heightened sense of duty, responsibility, adherence to principles, the internal character of the processing of emotions. They often hold administrative positions, but they lack flexibility, spontaneity and spontaneity in expressing feelings. They prefer to act according to pre-drawn schemes, stencils, they hardly rebuild their relationships.

Right hemisphere type - the dominance of the right hemisphere determines the inclination to creativity, the specific-figurative nature of cognitive processes. The right hemisphere of the brain operates with images of real objects, is responsible for orientation in space and easily perceives spatial relationships. It is believed to be responsible for the synthetic activity of the brain. Right-brain people are distinguished by visual perception, non-verbal, practical intelligence; fast processing of information; involuntary memory. Extroverts. In addition, the ability to draw and perceive the harmony of shapes and colors, ear for music, artistry, and success in sports are associated with the functioning of the right hemisphere. Right brains are prone to negative emotions, including anxiety and fear. They are better oriented in the environment, more holistic in the perception of the world around them.

Formation of motivation for learning. For right-brain students, it is necessary to focus on the prestige of the position in the team, the authority, the social significance of this type of activity, since their need for self-realization is highly expressed. The motives prompting to study school subjects are associated with the formation of their personality, with the desire for self-knowledge, with the desire to understand the relationship of people, to realize their position in the world. They are characterized by an orientation towards high appreciation and praise: "five at any cost." The aesthetic side of subjects is of great interest to right-brain schoolchildren.

Children with a dominant right hemisphere do not control the correctness of their speech. Activities that require constant self-control will not perform well. In speaking, problems with grammar and word selection can arise. Semantic gaps are possible, especially if the right-brain pupil is also impulsive.

It should be noted that right-brain people have excellent spatial orientation, body sense, and high coordination of movements. They are successful in team sports. The speech of right-brain people is emotional, expressive, rich in intonations, gestures. There is no particular alignment in it, stumbling, confusion, unnecessary words and sounds are possible. It is easier for them to dictate the text than to write. Among the right-hemisphere, there are more often writers, journalists, artists, organizers. As a rule, right-brain people are holistic natures, open and direct in expressing feelings, naive, gullible, suggestible, capable of subtly feeling and worrying, easily upset and cry, come into a state of anger and rage, sociable and communicative. They often act according to their mood.

Equal-hemispheric type - the absence of a pronounced dominance of one of the hemispheres suggests their synchronous activity in the choice of thinking strategies. In addition, there is a hypothesis of the effective interaction of the right and left hemispheres as a physiological basis for general giftedness.
The most literate are equal hemispheric students. Their left hemisphere takes over the main work of organizing the processing of visual and auditory information, the motor act of writing. Having written a dictation, the children of this group notice and correct almost all the mistakes made. Left hemispheric students make 2.5 times more mistakes when writing: for unstressed vowels in the root, they miss the soft sign, 12 times more often confuse case endings, write extra letters, replace some consonants with others. Many verbs are used in speech. Right hemispheric children make mistakes in vocabulary words, as well as in stressed vowels, write proper names with a lowercase letter, they are characterized by omissions, misspellings.

Causes of school neuroses in primary school age.

We can say that in childhood, boys are more right-brain than girls, but with age in men, the left hemisphere begins to lead in terms of its level of functional development. Men are becoming more left-brain than women.

However, innate prerequisites are only initial conditions, and the asymmetry itself is formed in the process of individual development, under the influence of social contacts, primarily family ones.

Parents, raising a child, often want to get a certain result, expect one reaction from him, but sometimes they get a completely opposite one.

In early school age, children may have obsessive fears of doing something wrong. Following doubts about the correctness of their actions comes uncertainty and, along with this, a painfully sharpened sense of duty, duty, responsibility. Excessive demands on oneself are often combined with pressure from parents with a hypersocial personality orientation.

What happens to the child while doing this? Spontaneity, immediacy of feelings, the ability to quickly grasp the situation disappear, and instead of emotions we see their surrogate - constant anxiety and doubts, anxious suspiciousness. Thus, a transcendental mode of operation of the left hemisphere is created. Constant overstrain of neuropsychic forces leads to chronic stress. This manifests itself in a gradually growing feeling of fatigue, attention disorder, headaches.

Parents and teachers often regard neurotic disorders as a lack of volitional (conscious) regulation of behavior and increase moral requirements. In this case, the child ceases to assimilate not only the requirements, but also all the sign information: “does not hear”, “does not see”, “digs”, constantly experiences fatigue. This brings into play the protective function of the right hemisphere, which does not allow the realization of unacceptable experiences for it.

Thus, in all neuroses, interhemispheric interaction is disturbed. It is known that the development of neuroses is facilitated by the left-hemisphere accent in learning. Excessive stimulation of the functions of the left hemisphere, which are not yet characteristic of children, occurs when the functions of the right hemisphere are inhibited.

Along with the specialization of the hemispheres, the brain works as a whole. When communicating with a child, it is useful for parents to remember more often that everyone has a place in the sun: left-, right- and equal-hemispheric children.

Help should be expressed in psychological relief. Children need vivid impressions and hobbies, positive emotions and a return to a sense of joy in life.

Do not forget that this is not a sexless child, but a boy or girl with certain peculiarities of thinking, perception, emotions.

2. Never compare children with each other, praise them for their successes and achievements.

3. When teaching boys, rely on their high search activity, ingenuity.

4. When teaching girls, not only understand with them the principle of completing the assignment, but also teach them to act independently, and not according to pre-developed schemes.

5. When scolding a boy, be aware of his emotional sensitivity and anxiety. Tell him briefly and accurately your dissatisfaction. The boy is not able to hold on to emotional stress for a long time, very soon he stops listening and hearing you.

6. When scolding a girl, remember her emotional violent reaction, which prevents her from understanding why she is being scolded. Calmly analyze her mistakes.

7. Girls can be naughty due to fatigue (exhaustion of the right "emotional" hemisphere). Boys in this case are depleted of information (decreased activity of the left "rational-logical" hemisphere). It is useless and immoral to scold them for this.

8. Orient programs and teaching methods for a specific child with a certain type of functional asymmetry of the hemispheres, give him the opportunity to reveal his abilities, create a situation of success for him.

9. When teaching your child to write literate, do not destroy the foundations of "innate" literacy. Look for the reasons for the child's illiteracy, analyze his mistakes.

10. Do not forget that your assessment given to the child is always subjective and depends on your type of hemispheric asymmetry. Perhaps you belong to different types of brain organization and think differently.

11. You should not so much teach the child as develop his desire to learn.

12. Remember that any child may not know something, not be able to, or be mistaken in something.

13. The laziness of a child is a signal that your activity is not going well.

14. For the harmonious development of a child, it is necessary to teach him to comprehend the educational material in different ways (logically, figuratively, intuitively).

15. For successful learning, we must turn our requirements into the wishes of the child.

Who are the left and right hemisphere and what is the difference between them? The awareness of each hemisphere is strictly limited to the half of the body subordinate to it (the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body, and the right one controls the left). The right hemisphere is a great constructor. The ability to extrapolate a whole image from a portion of a drawing is a function of the right hemisphere. The right hemisphere confidently detects exactly the same patterns. The left hemisphere, on the other hand, has an easier time finding tasks for differences. It processes information piece by piece, observing a strict order of analysis of the details. Right-brain people have excellent spatial orientation, body sense, and high coordination of movements. The left hemisphere has a sense of time and is muscularly enduring. The right hemisphere is more successful in the study of geometry due to its spatial nature. Algebra requires logic, consistent thinking, which is the advantage of left-brain students. The right hemisphere does not understand the signs "take away", "multiply", "divide" and is unable to perform these actions. Unless it can cope with addition, and even then, if the tasks are the easiest, like 1 + 2 or 2 + 3. It copes well with various tasks for generalization and systematization. The seizure of a holistic image of an image instead of its step-by-step discrete analysis prevents the right hemisphere from mastering reading, which explains the failures in teaching reading using the left hemisphere methods. If a child has a left dominant eye (which is a sign of right hemisphere), he / she may not immediately learn to navigate on a piece of paper. The vision is arranged in such a way that the left-handed eye involuntarily falls to the right side of the book and notebook. Therefore, he reads the word from the end. He sees that it is nonsense, and does not dare to say it out loud. Parents or the teacher do not understand why the child reads with pauses, hurrying him, injuring him, then how the child needs help.

The ability to actively reproduce speech in the right hemisphere is much less pronounced than to understand words. Children with a dominant right hemisphere do not control the correctness of their speech. Activities that require constant self-control are poorly performed by them. In spoken language, problems with grammar and word selection can arise. Semantic gaps are possible, especially if the right-brain pupil is also impulsive. Children with left hemisphere dominance control their speech. The right hemisphere has absolutely no grammar. But the most literate are equal hemisphere students. That's how different they are! B. Bely said well about their differences: "The right-hemisphere people do not see individual trees behind the forest, and the left-hemisphere people do not see the forest behind individual trees." The maturation of the right hemisphere proceeds at a faster pace than the left, and therefore, in the early period of development, its contribution to psychological functioning exceeds the contribution of the left hemisphere. It is even argued that up to 9-10 years old, a child is a right-brain creature. According to some reports, significant changes in interhemispheric interaction are noted by the age of 6-7, that is, by the beginning of schooling. The impetus for the activation of the left hemisphere is the appearance of the child's consciousness of himself, this happens at the age of two. At the same time, stubbornness is most pronounced.

Society overestimates the role of the left hemisphere and logical thinking in the development of a child's mental activity. School teaching methods train and develop mainly the left hemisphere, ignoring at least half of the child's capabilities. I. Sauniere (France) stated: "By teaching the left hemisphere, you teach only the left hemisphere. By teaching the right hemisphere, you are teaching the whole brain." It is known that the right hemisphere is associated with the development of creative thinking and intuition. The main type of thinking of a younger student is visual-figurative, closely related to the emotional sphere. This involves the participation of the right hemisphere in learning. Thus, the shift in interhemispheric asymmetry towards the absolute dominance of the left hemispheric strategy of thinking is not only a biological function of growing up, but also the result of cultural traditions, social influences, and learning. Such dominance can be achieved only at the cost of great efforts of the teacher, parents and student. But are these efforts always justified? Even the German teacher Gerbard wrote that a bad teacher teaches the truth, and a good teacher teaches to find it. Leading specialist in the field of neuroeducation, for example, Professor N.N. Traugott says: "We need to warn schools against left-hemispheric education. This educates people who are not capable of real action in a real situation." Professor TP Khrizman also warns: "The right hemispheres, the generators of ideas, are disappearing. The question is serious: the nation must be saved." Professor DV Kolesov agrees with them: "True thinking is figurative, complex, when it is important not only to define it with a concept, but also to understand it comprehensively." Evidence of the positive impact of the development of the right hemisphere on the general intellectual development of the individual is provided by recent studies by American, Swiss and Austrian scientists who conducted experiments among children from five to fifteen years old. The control group studied according to the standard school curriculum, and in the experimental program, the number of music lessons was increased by reducing the hours of mathematics and languages. For three years, children not only did not lag behind their peers from the control group, but even showed better results, especially in the study of foreign languages (verbal-analytical thinking).

Already at birth, there are prerequisites for the functional asymmetry of the brain. But studies have confirmed that the development of one or another hemisphere, despite the genetic predisposition to dominance, is associated with the characteristics of education and development. That is, innate prerequisites are only initial conditions, and the asymmetry itself is formed in the process of individual development under the influence of social contacts, primarily family ones. That is why education should be built taking into account the figurative thinking prevailing in children. And the most progressive and expedient is the development of both hemispheres of the brain. Thus, Victoria Yurkevich, Candidate of Psychological Sciences, leading researcher at the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education, believes that a non-rigid division of hemispheric functions promotes creativity (creative thinking), and a rigid one reduces it. In the book by A. L. Sirotyuk "Teaching children with different types of thinking" it is said that the more efforts are made in the process of upbringing to dominate logical-sign thinking (left hemisphere education), the more efforts will be required in the future to overcome its limitations. In other words, in order to liberate imaginative thinking and release creative forces, it is necessary to rework what was laid down in childhood. And re-educating, as you know, is more difficult than educating. The author claims that with neuroses and psychosomatic diseases, there is, as it were, a partial withdrawal of the right hemispheric contribution, as a result of which the ability to make non-standard decisions decreases. In other words, if a child is often sick due to constant overload and stress, then figurative, that is, creative thinking, he develops poorly. And since the ability to imagine in childhood is a prerequisite for the thinking of an adult, the child does not receive proper development. But an adult thinks that if a kid is ahead of his peers in knowledge and skill, then his thinking is better developed. What happens when such a child graduates from school, and then a higher educational institution and comes to work? Unfortunately, more and more often leaders of various spheres note that modern young specialists with higher education are less creative and independent in their decisions than their previous generation.

Marina Sultanova

The left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for consciousness and concrete thinking. This also includes logic and mathematical calculations. But that's not all. The left hemisphere is also responsible for speaking, reading and writing, and also for our motor sphere.

For people with a left-brain advantage, it is not difficult to memorize an entire poem, let alone a long poem. They have good language skills, as they remember words perfectly and easily master the logic of constructing sentences. Difficulties can arise with languages such as Japanese, Chinese or any other language that does not use letters in writing, but hieroglyphs for syllables or whole words. If the left hemisphere suffers from a traumatic brain injury, speech disorders may appear: blurredness, errors in the names of objects, multiple repetitions of the same, stuttering and stammering.

"Right-handers" perceive rhythmic music better. Their associations are quite specific, since it is generally not easy for them to generalize concepts. A developed left hemisphere makes it easier to perform stereotyped movements. Thanks to this, "right-handers" can easily work on a conveyor belt, generally carry out the same type of tasks and operations.

The left hemisphere can be compared to a personal computer, which monitors and analyzes all the changes that occur, both in the body and in its environment. But not all changes are recognized, but only those that can be distinguished with the help of logic. Our "inner speech", the ability to "think in words" belongs to the left hemisphere.

Optimists have a predominantly left hemisphere. They love logical reasoning, know how to discard everything that “does not fit into the line,” and confidently look into the future.

Philosophers and researchers of the phenomena of the exact sciences are left-brain people. It is more interesting for them not to observe the world around them, but to draw conclusions from these observations, analyze what is happening, think logically and make decisions.

And finally, the left hemisphere is also responsible for what is commonly called willpower.

Right-brain people, or left-handers

The right hemisphere of the brain controls the subconscious and abstract thinking, orientation in space and the sphere of feelings. It is responsible for figurative memory, the perception of music, intonation and rhythm, the expressiveness of sound. It has been experimentally established that if you listen to music with your left ear, through an earpiece, the melody is recognized faster. Right-brain people have a better understanding of classical music with its subtleties and nuances. They give out a high level of association. It is not difficult for them to abstract from the specifics and generalize. Those with more activated right hemisphere retain in their memory the most varied impressions of what they saw and heard longer.

The left hemisphere is responsible for speech, it “thinks” with words. The right hemisphere "thinks" in images, it reads information contained not in words, but in intonations, facial expressions and gestures. For a right-hemisphere person, it is not so much important what it is said how much how said.

Marina came to the child psychologist's appointment with anxiety about the behavior of her four-year-old son: in her opinion, the boy does not adequately respond to communication. At the reception there was a demonstration of such an "inadequate" reaction. Marina several times called Artyom to her place, since we asked her about it, but he was carried away by the designer and could not tear himself away from him, and therefore, in response to the first two requests, he asked to play "just a minute". For the third time Marina, pursing her lips and narrowing her eyes, hissed, without raising her tone, but in a "metallic" voice: "Artem, leave the designer immediately and come to me." Artyom immediately became bored with resentment and resolutely declared: "Don't shout at me!" Of course, the mother spoke in an even voice, but her mimicry and gestures just “screamed”, and the child heard it. As Marina later admitted, she left us both reassured and worried. She realized that everything was fine with her boy, just that he was clearly right-brain (by the way, Artyom took both a spoon-fork and a pencil with his left hand from childhood), and the confidence in the “normality” of her son could not but please her. But now she is worried about something else: how to communicate with a child who is sensitive to intonation, how to learn to control oneself.

The left hemisphere helps us read and understand a book. The right hemisphere, being sufficiently developed and trained, makes it possible to "read between the lines" and "hear between words." It makes us re-read over and over again familiar works, because every time we come across some discoveries, something that went unnoticed during the previous reading or viewing.

Let's make another test for right and left hemispheres. Read AM Gorky's ballad “About the Little Fairy and the Young Shepherd”. While reading, try to find and briefly formulate the main meaning of the work in the form of a summary.

A fairy lived in the forest above the river,
She swam in the river at night
And once, forgetting caution,
I got caught in fishing nets.

The fishermen watched, marveled ...
Their beloved companion, Marco,
He took a gentle fairy in his arms
And he began to kiss her hotly.

And the fairy, like a flexible branch,
Wriggled in mighty hands
Yes, I looked into Markov's eyes
And she laughed quietly at something.

They kissed the whole day,
And as soon as night fell, -
The beautiful fairy has disappeared
And with it, Markov’s strength.

Marco spent his days prowling through the woods,
And at night I sat over the Danube
And he asked the waves: "Where is the fairy?"
And the waves are laughing: "We don't know!"

Marco hanged himself on a bitter one,
A cowardly trembling aspen ...
And his friends buried him
Over the blue Danube in the gorge.

At night to his grave
That fairy came to sit ...
Sits and laughs at something ...
After all, that's how she loved fun!

The fairy is bathing in the Danube,
As before, before Marco, I swam ...
And Marco is gone! From Marco
Only this song remained!

Now check yourself.

1. “Only those who somehow stood out, did something unusual remain in the memory of people” - you used the left hemisphere.

2. "There are forces in the world that are incomprehensible and beyond the control of man" - you "read" with the right hemisphere and drew attention to the subtext.

3. “Often we imagine ourselves to be the masters of the situation, without being such in reality” - this option turns out if you, agreeing with resume No. 1, did not calm down and reread the legend. While reading, you "slowed down" on the line where the fairy was "quietly laughing at something." All this means that you are of a mixed type, that is, you are able to turn on both hemispheres at will.

If the left hemisphere is responsible for logic, then thanks to the right hemisphere, intuitive insights and discoveries become possible. The scientist “dreamed” the periodic table in a dream, when the left hemisphere, which is responsible for the work of consciousness, was temporarily “turned off”. Intuition and insight are the right brain methods. Therefore, many creative people - artists, poets, painters and musicians - are right-brain. Right-brain people just love to look at everything and admire the smallest things.

My daughter at the age of three just drove us all crazy. We were in a hurry somewhere, and she froze at every step: "Mom, look, a leaf," "Oh, mom, what a dog!" and so on. She was delighted with everything, she had to consider everything. To tear her away from contemplation was about the same as “pulling a hippopotamus out of the swamp,” in general, the work is not easy, especially since the girl was terribly offended and threw a hysteria. So we preferred to leave at least half an hour earlier, so that our "eyeball", as we called her, could look at the world for his own pleasure.

If your child can stare at a blade of grass for half an hour, do not interrupt this process of contemplation. This is not increased harm and not a whim, but an impulse of the soul. Who knows, perhaps your future Leonardo is growing up. If you don't know how to help your child, just don't bother.

The right hemisphere has one hundred eyes instead of two, it is able to simultaneously see a lot, to catch connections between objects and events. It is to them, the "right hemispheres", that the dictum that there is nothing in the world is accidental belongs. Right-brain people easily accept new things, they are not conservatives by nature. And this is a great paradox, since they, while accepting the new, constantly look back, look at the lost and the past, and therefore most often look at the world with pessimism. It would seem that the higher the intellect, the more talents and abilities, the more objective a person's self-esteem should be. But no, self-esteem strongly depends on the emotional world of the individual, and therefore it is naturally gifted people who more often than mediocre ones doubt their talents, go through periods of the deepest depressions.

Since the right hemisphere is responsible for the sphere of feelings, it is not surprising that right-hemisphere people, among whom there are many left-handers, have the abilities that are now commonly called phenomenal. The subconscious mind, for which the right hemisphere is responsible, is in charge of all those mental functions that we are not able to control. This includes primarily intuition and dreams. Telepathy and hypnosis, as well as the phenomena of automatic counting and absolute memory, also refer to the work of the subconscious and, accordingly, the right hemisphere.

It is also quite natural that many left-handers are related to art and science. We can recall scientists - I.P. Pavlov and J.C. Maxwell, artists - Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, connoisseurs of the word, feeling it to taste and touch - I. Dahl and L. Carroll. The genius left-handers include such personalities as Paul McCartney and Charlie Chaplin. If you believe the legends of deep antiquity, then Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great and Napoleon were also left-handed.

Sections: School psychological service

Right-hemisphere people do not see individual trees behind the forest, and left-hemisphere people do not see the forest behind individual trees.
B. White

There are several types of functional organization of the two hemispheres of the brain:

dominance of the left hemisphere - the verbal and logical nature of cognitive processes, a tendency to abstract and generalize (left hemisphere people);
dominance of the right hemisphere - concrete-figurative thinking, developed imagination (right hemisphere people);
the absence of a pronounced dominance of one of the hemispheres (equal hemisphere people).