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One Head, Two Brains: How The Brain's Hemispheres Shape The World We See

By Shankar Vedantam,
Rhaina Cohen, Tara Boyle, Jennifer Schmidt
Published February 4, 2019 at 5:50 PM EST

If you search for "left brain vs. right brain" on YouTube, it's not long before you'll find yourself in a vortex of weird claims and outlandish hype.

For decades, pop psychology books and web videos have made dramatic claims about people who are left-brained and people who are right-brained. It got to the point that many scientists felt they had to steer clear of the study of hemispheric differences.

Psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist experienced this pressure, but says he couldn't stay away from the field. He was too intrigued by a question that has fascinated philosophers and scientists for centuries: Why is the human brain divided in half? Iain answers that question in his book The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.

This week on Hidden Brain, we dive into Iain's research on how the left and right hemispheres shape our perceptions. Iain argues that differences in the brain — and Western society's preference for what one hemisphere has to offer — have had enormous effects on our lives.

Additional Resources:

The pieces of classical music included in this episode are:

Debussy's 'Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum'

The second movement of Bach's Double Violin Concerto

The Kyrie section of Bach's B Minor Mass

The final movement of Bach's Violin Concerto in A minor

Hidden Brain is hosted by Shankar Vedantam and produced by Jennifer Schmidt, Parth Shah, Rhaina Cohen, Laura Kwerel, and Thomas Lu. Our supervising producer is Tara Boyle. You can also follow us on Twitter @hiddenbrain, and listen for Hidden Brain stories each week on your local public radio station.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

WYPR Arts
Shankar Vedantam
Shankar Vedantam is the host and creator of Hidden Brain. The Hidden Brain podcast receives more than three million downloads per week. The Hidden Brain radio show is distributed by NPR and featured on nearly 400 public radio stations around the United States.
See stories by Shankar Vedantam
Rhaina Cohen
Rhaina Cohen is a producer and editor for NPR's Enterprise Storytelling unit, working across Embedded, Invisibilia, and Rough Translation.
See stories by Rhaina Cohen
Tara Boyle
Tara Boyle is the supervising producer of NPR's Hidden Brain. In this role, Boyle oversees the production of both the Hidden Brain radio show and podcast, providing editorial guidance and support to host Shankar Vedantam and the shows' producers. Boyle also coordinates Shankar's Hidden Brain segments on Morning Edition and other NPR shows, and oversees collaborations with partners both internal and external to NPR. Previously, Boyle spent a decade at WAMU, the NPR station in Washington, D.C. She has reported for The Boston Globe, and began her career in public radio at WBUR in Boston.
See stories by Tara Boyle
Jennifer Schmidt
Jennifer Schmidt is a senior producer for Hidden Brain. She is responsible for crafting the complex stories that are told on the show. She researches, writes, gathers field tape, and develops story structures. Some highlights of her work on Hidden Brain include episodes about the causes of the #MeToo movement, how diversity drives creativity, and the complex psychology of addiction.
See stories by Jennifer Schmidt