One Brain Or Two? In 1960s researchers, Roger W. Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga wanted to explore the extent to which the two halves of the brain are able to function independently as well as whether they have separate unique abilities. The two hemispheres of your brain are in constant communication with each other because of our corpus callosum. If the corpus callosum was surgically removed and the brain was split into two hemispheres and the information traveling between the two halves of your brain is interrupted would the right side of your body suddenly be unable to coordinate with the left? Both researchers had many other questions like “if language is controlled by the left side of the brain how would your ability to speak and understand words be affected?" Also, “would thinking and reasoning processes exist in both halves separately?” They attempted to answer these studies with patients who had their corpus callosum surgically removed due to uncontrollable epilepsy, seizures. The hypothesis they proposed was if they surgically divided the brain up by two hemispheres they could see all the functions that it does for the body. Method The types of research/Methods these two scientists did was laboratory observations. The main method was to surgically
divide the hemispheres of the brain. The first method/test visual abilities test was where the experimenters/patients explain which side they saw the flashing lights on. All the patients said they only saw the lights on their right side but not their left. Next asked the participants to point to where they saw the lights. They all said they only saw the lights on the right, but they pointed to all the lights in both of the visual fields. For the method, tactile abilities test the researchers would put the patient’s hands behind their backs. Then they would put familiar objects in one of their hands to see if they could identify it by touch. When the object was placed in the right had the messages about the object would travel to the left hemisphere and then the patient was able to describe it. When the object was in the left hand the participant had more of a struggle trying to describe what it was. For the visual + tactile method tested to see which hemisphere of the brain could name and describe pictures. The experimenters would display a picture of an object to the right hemisphere of the brain, and the participants wouldn’t be able to name it. When they showed the object to the left hemisphere, the patients could name the picture really easily. The three methods explained throughout are the experiments done to tell the different functions of each hemisphere. Findings
Through the method, visual abilities test the researchers found out that both hemispheres of the brain were equally skilled in visual perceptions. The tactile abilities it displayed that your left hemisphere is better when it comes to feeling objects without seeing them. Lastly, the method visual plus tactile tests determined the left hemisphere is better when it comes to dealing with speech ability. The right hemisphere is superior to the left side when dealing with shapes, faces, solving problems, relationships, and symbolic reasoning. Sperry and Gazzaniga tested the right hemisphere when testing the left. They always tried the right hemisphere, after or before testing the left.