The human brain includes two hemispheres connected by a bundle of nerves. The left hemisphere controls movement for the right side of the body, while the right hemisphere directs the left side. The hemispheres specialize in distinct mental functions—different aspects of visual perception, for example—but most behaviors and abilities require activity in both halves of the brain.
How the Left and Right Hemispheres Work Together
Both sides of the brain collaborate to handle major functions such as language processing and vision. But they are also, to a degree, specialized. Some areas of the brain are more active than others during particular tasks, and one hemisphere may be more involved than the other in specific parts of a larger mental operation.
For example, Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area are both linked to language and are most commonly located on the left side of the brain. Yet the right hemisphere is also known to play a role in language processing. Meanwhile, the limbic system—which includes the amygdalae and hippocampi and is involved in functions such as emotion and memory —resides on both sides of the brain.
In language processing, it is usually the left brain that properly orders words during speech, while in visual perception, it registers the locations of objects in space relative to other objects.
The right brain, like the left brain , supports language, including in processing the correct meaning of a set of words with more than one possible implication (as in the case of figurative speech). And in visual perception, it processes the distance between objects.
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