The Turning Girl Knows Your IQ

Which way does the girl turn for you?

Some Can Shift their Brain’s Current

A five-year study by Yale researchers has yielded a simple animation to indicate which hemisphere of the brain a subject is using. Apparently, some people can use both hemispheres by willfully changing the brain’s current.

An image of a woman in a pirouette-style pose spins either clockwise or counter-clockwise depending upon the gray matter’s perspective. When the female turns clockwise, the person is using the right brain; when the image spins counter-clockwise, the left-brain is being used. If the observer can make the image spin both ways without changing the angle of observation, the brain’s current has shifted - a feat only 14 percent of the population with IQ’s in excess of 160 can do.  

A word of caution is appropriate for evaluating the results of the test however. No one is entirely a left- or right-brained person unless a brain hemisphere has been removed.

The left brain is associated with analytical, verbal and logical functions while the right hemisphere is known for characteristics such as intuition, mathematical calculation and finer language skills. Research indicates both sets of abilities are used on a regular basis and are not confined or determined by personality as some popular references to the studies have led many to believe. There does tend to be a hemispheric dominance or preference though. The test above only indicates the hemispheric dominance and ability to switch between the two.

I’ve personally witnessed many Wada tests in which one hemisphere of the brain is anesthetized while the subject undergoes a neuropsychological examination. When the anesthesia wears off, the same procedure is applied to the other side of the brain.

The results indicate the subject’s hemispheric dominance and predict likely personality changes prior to deciding whether or not to surgically sever a large part of the hemispheric connective tissue. The operation, known as a corpus callosotomy, was only used to treat the most severe cases of epilepsy in which past epileptic seizures have resulted in life-threatening levels of bodily injury.

Interestingly enough, the two halves of the brain are completely separate units except where they’re joined at the corpus callosom tissue, and they process information independently.

Although I haven’t read the Yale research paper personally, I’m inclined to assume women were split evenly between the two hemispheric preferences, and men mostly wanted to know the model’s phone number.

I found this tidbit at LeveragingIdeas.com.  It’s a great site.