Our brain is divided into 2 halves, or hemispheres, that are connected to each other by the corpus callosum. These two hemispheres control the motion in and receive sensory inputs from the opposite side of our body. In other words, the left hemisphere controls the right side of our body and also receives sensory inputs from the right side of our body.
The left hemisphere of our brain handles tasks such as reading, writing, speaking, arithmetic reasoning and understanding. Study shows that when we speak or do arithmetic calculations, activity increases in our left hemisphere. Another characteristics of our left hemisphere is that it tends to process information sequentially, one at a time.
The right hemisphere of our brain excels in visual perception, understanding spatial relationships, recognizing patterns, music, emotional expressions, etc. It is also good at making inferences. For example, when primed with words such as “foot”, “cry” and “glass”, our right hemisphere will relate these words to “cut”. Our left hemisphere knows all these words individually but is unable to quickly make inferences from them. Our right hemisphere also lets us perceive the sense of self. People with lesions in the right brain sometimes have difficulty recognizing themselves in the mirror. Unlike the left hemisphere, our right hemisphere tends to process information as a whole.