A caveat: This post may make the brains of scientific types explode.
Certain cognitive processes are linked predominantly to the left or right side of the brain, and news flash! The brains of both humans and canine brain develop asymmetrically. A convenient measure of brain asymmetry in humans is hand dominance, but in dogs, it’s the wagging of their tail.
Italian researchers found that that when dogs wag their tails to the right (left hemisphere activation), they’re in a positive/approach mode and are perceived as ‘friendly’ by other dogs.
When a dog wags its tail to the left (right hemisphere activation) they’re feeling negative/avoidance emotions and perceived as unfriendly or unfamiliar by other dogs. In a completely different study, it was found that people with psychotic disorders are much more likely to be left-handed (right brain dominant). Don’t shoot the messenger.
It’s really bad science to generalize, so as writers, we’re going to generalize. We aren’t scientists, forgive us for the following.
Several years ago, we shared the link to a 30 second test that determines if the test-taker is left brained, right brained, or equal in dominance. For fun, we asked readers to share the results of their test along with their breed because our imaginations wandered. We can’t stress enough how unscientific our methodology was to compile the results we share now. Put another way, if an actuary lead a wicked, wanton life, then died and went to his own private hell, it would be these results. Still, it was all in good fun, so here goes.
The vast majority who took the test at the time were equally dominant in both spheres of their brains, but the owners of herding and working breeds were especially so. Sporting dog owners were skewed heavily toward being right brained over left or equally dominant, while hound dog owners were more left brained. Terrier owners were more “equal brained” than left or right dominant as were Toy breed and Non-Sporting breed owners.
Pop theory holds that “right-brained” people are creative, artistic, and open-minded thinkers who perceive life in subjective terms, while “left-brains” are analytical and detail oriented who excel at tasks that require attention to detail. They’re more logically minded.
All that said, researchers from the University of Utah found with brain imaging that people don’t use the right sides of their brains any more than the left sides of their brains, or vice versa. “It’s absolutely true that some brain functions occur in one or the other side of the brain. Language tends to be on the left, attention more on the right. But people don’t tend to have a stronger left- or right-sided brain network. It seems to be determined more connection by connection,” study researcher Jeff Anderson, M.D., Ph.D., said in a statement.
So much for that.
Image by e9Art is available here.