Something I wrote for my psychology class. Fillers!
Everything about psychology fascinates me. Ever since I’ve learned to put it into the perspective of human life (understanding certain actions, causes, and reasons for experiences with myself and others), I can’t get away from using it. Because of all this, it was no surprise that I have been thoroughly enjoying Psych 1A since the first lecture hearing Ernest Baker’s “The Denial of Death.” But there was one section that attracted me more than I thought it would have; the human brain’s right and left hemisphere, whether as a whole or split down the middle.
I had already heard that the one side of the brain controlled the other of the body, that one side can be more “romantic,” or that being left-handed made you right-brained. The lecture, however, brought to me a new and deep insight as to how the brain actually functioned. I loved hearing that being straight-left-handed increased the chances of not only being right-brained, but the chances of being ambidextrous as well. This especially hit me because I myself am straight-left-handed, and always questioned whether I was ambidextrous or not (I write, eat, pour, and brush left while I do almost anything “physical” right.)
Apart from the lecture, I also had a fun experience reading the section in the psychology book. In module 5, when I read the section, Studying Hemispheric Differences in the Intact Brain, I thought the word associations were incredibly interesting. When I had read the words foot, cry, and glass, the word cut kept flashing in my mind before I even read the word. The same happened when the word camp stuck to me while reading the words boot, summer and ground. I was so fascinated by this that I tried it on two of my brothers and even my cousin- who are all right-handed. They couldn’t associate the words nearly as quick as I had- save for one of my brothers who is very musically talented-a feature that I learned was found in the right side of the brain! Either I had not explained the whole situation well enough beforehand to my family (which I proudly believe to have done so), or I experienced experimentation (and results) on the uses and affect of the left and right side of the brain.
Going along with the left and right hemispheres, it further excited me about learning about the split brain. First, I had never thought that anyone with a split brain could live. Second, I had no idea that something like that could actually be helpful to some cases such as epilepsy. I was so caught up in it that I tried explaining (unsuccessfully, I believe) to my friends just out of the blue. Looking back at my lecture notes on the case, I found out I hadn’t much to write about it. The first thing I wrote about the split brain was, “(the) Split Brain is weird.” As simple as that description was, I can go on with so many other words such as fascinating, awesome, deep, or-as an attempt for a joke of the thought of it-mind splitting! All-in-all, the subject of both sides of the brain has definitely blown my own mind. It has entertained me from the start, as well as given me a whole new insight as to the reactions of things. Strangely enough, I still don’t even know whether I’m right or left-brained. Although I don’t know for a fact, I can now make a much more calculated guess than before. After all the knowledge and facts brought to mind that I recently discovered, I must say one thing: that it is all right to be left-handed (this was a reference in the book about guesses that left-handers were to die early and had diseases and problems).
