No.
In the case of Left Brain/Right Brain "function" has been interpreted as "thought." Thought and function are not the same thing.
Each hemisphere of the brain has specializations or function sets. Generally:
- Right hemisphere: Processing of
visual and audiological stimuli,
spatial manipulation.
- Left hemisphere: Linear reasoning and
language functions.
How do we know?
... definite evidence for language
lateralisation arose from studies in
split brain patients. In these
patients, the nerve fibres that
connect the two hemispheres were
severed in order to stop the spread of
epileptic seizures from one hemisphere
to the other ... studies of these split
brain patients were carried out in the
1960s and 1970s by the Nobel Prize
laureate Roger Sperry and his
colleagues at the Californian
Institute of
Technology ... Sperry’s
experiments yielded an amazing result:
when split brain patients processed an
object with their right hand, i.e.
with their left hemisphere, they could
easily name the object. In contrast,
when an object was touched with the
left hand, i.e. processed by the right
hemisphere, they could not name it!
The whole "philosophy" of Left Brain/Right Brain was pulled from this information, not from further research. In other words, it's made up.
The notion of different hemispheric
thinking styles is based on an
erroneous premise: each brain
hemisphere is specialised and
therefore each must function
independently with a different
thinking style. This connection is a
bridge too far: it uses scientific
findings regarding functional
asymmetries for the processing of
stimuli to create conceptions about
hemispheric differences on a different
level, such as a cognitive thinking
style. Furthermore, there is no direct
scientific evidence supporting the
idea that different thinking styles
lie within each hemisphere. Indeed,
deriving different hemispheric
thinking styles from functional
asymmetries is quite a bold venture,
which oversimplifies and misinterprets
scientific findings.
The above two quotes come from The left brain/ right brain myth.
Being a neurophysiologist, I suppose I
ought to feel that progress has been
made: in no other age could it have
taken a mere twenty years to shift
from a predominantly religious
metaphor to a semi-scientific one.
But the neurophysiologists and
neuropsychologists who specialize in
the human cerebral cortex are starting
to view the left-righters with
something of the wariness which the
astronomers reserve for astrology." -William Calvin
