Right Brain - Left Brain

Right Brain Inventory • Visual, focusing on images, patterns

Left Brain Inventory • Verbal, focusing on words, symbols, numbers • Analytical, led by logic • Process ideas sequentially, step by step Words used to remember things, remember names rather than faces

• Intuitive, led by feelings • Process ideas simultaneously • 'Mind photos' used to remember things, writing things down or illustrating them helps you remember • Make lateral connections from information • Make logical deductions from information • See the whole first, then the details • Work up to the whole step by step, focusing on details, information organised • Organisation ends to be lacking • Highly organised • Free association • Like making lists and planning • Like to know why you're doing something • Likely to follow rules without or why rules exist (reasons) questioning them • No sense of time • Good at keeping track of time • May have trouble with spelling and finding • Spelling and mathematical formula words to express yourself easily memorised • Enjoy touching and feeling actual objects • Enjoy observing (sensory input) • Trouble prioritizing, so often late, • Plan ahead impulsive • Unlikely to read instruction manual before • Likely read an instruction manual trying before trying • Listen to how something is being said • Listen to what is being said • Talk with your hands • Rarely use gestures when talking • Likely to think you're naturally creative, • Likely to believe you're not creative, but need to apply yourself to develop your need to be willing to try and take risks to potential develop your potential

While we have a natural tendency towards one way of thinking, the two sides of our brain work together in our everyday lives. The right brain of the brain focuses on the visual, and processes information in an intuitive and simultaneous way, looking first at the whole picture then the details. The focus of the left brain is verbal, processing information in an analytical and sequential way, looking first at the pieces then putting them together to get the whole. 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.

Left Brain

right brain

Words (verbal) Black & White Logical Numbers Sequence Analysis Lists Critical Thinking intellect rational analytic analysis parts sequential objective logical convergent abstract directed propositional linear sequential successive reasoning mathematical speaking accuracy digital dominates pattern user

Images (non-verbal) Intuitive Color Rhythm Imagination Daydreaming Dimension Creative Thinking intuition intuitive holistic relational synthesis wholes intuitive subjective random whimsical divergent concrete free imaginative nonlinear multiple simultaneous mystical creative visual-pictorial aesthetics analogic submits pattern seeker