After choosing my topic and reading up on it, I came to a hypothesis. I figure after doing my research I would find that left handed people would be more creative than right handed people. Because I read (Theories for Handedness) that when a person uses their left hand to write, they use more of their right brain and when a person uses their right hand to write, they use more of their left brain. I read (Your Two Brains) that both sides of our brain perform different functions. The right side contains wholeness, feeling, tone, expression, music, artistry, creativity, arrangement, and dreaming. The left side contains ordering, reading, speech, writing, math, reasoning, sequence, logic, and categorizing. This is another reason behind my hypothesis. If the right side of the brain contains functions such as creativity and artistry and a person who is left handed uses more of their right brain, then they would be more creative.

Summary

I read a few books, all of which have pretty much the same points. A few of the points I will summarize for you are from the books Left Brain Right Brain, Your Two Brains, and theories/or Handedness. They state that all theories are shady and know one really knows why people are right or left handed. Some of the theories suggested were genetics. The book said that left handedness is a recessive gene and that right handedness is a dominant gene. Also, another reasoning behind left handedness is due to difficult births or children with family histories of immune disorders and migraine. The books say that normally handedness just develops and depending on the environment people grow up in that may or may not change the dominant hand they use. No theory is set in stone. They do know that about 90% of all the people in the world are right handed. Men are three times more likely to be left handed than women.
When it comes to preferred brain side we use both sides, of course, but sometimes we use one more than the other. Our minds are mostly contra lateral which means our preferred brain side is opposite of our preferred hand. Some people are ipsilateral though and this means they have same side dominance.

Observations and Procedures

I asked six people, boys and girls of no particular ages, to participate in my creativity and handedness test. I did make sure three of them were left handed and three of them were right handed.

Torque Test: First I asked them to write their name with their right hand and circle it and then write their name with their left hand and circle it. Which ever hand wrote with the highest quality I considered their dominant hand. Next if they drew both their circles counterclockwise then that showed they were left brained. If they drew both circles clockwise then they were right brained. If they drew one circle clockwise and the other counterclockwise then they were equally left and right brained.

Brain Preference Test from the book Your two Brains: Next, I asked some questions from part one of a brain preference test, from the book. Then I asked the questions from part two, added the two up and found the participants preferred brain side. Here are the questions to Part I:

• Imagine that you are getting ready to put on your shoes and socks. Which sock would you put on first? A. left B. right
• You are having a problem with a situation at school. Would you be more likely to: A. think about, and maybe write down, all the ways you can think of to solve it, then choose one. B. wait to see if the problem will go away.
• It is a rainy afternoon. Would you rather: A. work on a model. B. do a crossword
• You have an hour to wait for a friend to come to your house. Would you rather: A. read a good book B. lie on your bed and daydream
• You are giving a party for your friends tomorrow. When you get up in the morning will you: A. make a mental picture in your mind of all there is to do. B. make a list of all the things you must do
• Which is the closest to a description of your room at home: A. well organized B. the casual look
• When asked by a friend to tell what you did on vacation, do you: A .easily talk about many things B. say nothing much
• When you ask someone how to get to their house, would you rather: A. have them draw you a map B. have them explain it in words.
• Your class is going on a field trip to a big city. Would you rather: A. visit government buildings B. attend a class at the art museum
• Your parents are giving a party. To help them get ready would you rather: A. fix a flower arrangement B. count the number of utensils needed
• When you are given a school project, would you rather: A. do it alone b. work with a group
• When holding your pencil in front of you, perpendicular to the floor, close your eyes. Do you see the pencil move? A. when you close left eye B. when you close your right eye
• Your teacher gives you homework. Would you rather: A. write a short story about yourself B. write a poem about yourself
• If you were asked to put together a new toy wagon, would you: A. follow directions step by step B. not follow exact directions

Part II:

Put a check next to each of the items you like to do: Drawing, dancing, collecting things, swimming, fishing, playing cards, bicycling, scrabble, video games, chess or checkers, soccer, discussing, baseball, hiking, sewing, reading, jigsaw puzzles, oral reports, making party decorations, and word find puzzles.
After figuring out which brain side was preferred by the participants, I went ahead and gave them my creativity test. I asked them to draw a person, it didn't matter what the drawing looked like, how big it was, or the color. I said to just draw a person. After they were finished I judged the drawing based on a scale of one to ten. I took in to account the definition of creativity (the ability to transcend traditional patterns, ideas, rules, relationships or the like to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.). The more detail, what position the character was in, and how far away they were from drawing a traditional stick figure, was all looked at. The more creative their picture was, the more points they received.

Then I made an inkblot out of paint and paper. I showed the inkblot to the participants and asked what they saw. I wrote down everything they said during the time they got to look at the picture. When they were finished I counted all the different things they could come up with. I made a scale numbered from one to ten (shown below).

Number of Items seen:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 L M L M L M L M L M L M L M L M L M L M 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Points received:

L = The less detailed and different from the other participants responses
M = The more detailed and different from the other participants responses

Both creativity test results were added together to come up with my total. The total was used to determine who, in fact, was the most creative. The creativity test scales were my idea and I judged the results. The results were as follows:

• Participant #1 Pedro- Preferred hand=left, preferred brain side on torque test=right, other brain preference test=right, drawing of a person=4.5, inkblot=8.5, Total=13
• Participant #2 Cary- Preferred hand=left, preferred brain side on torque test=right, other brain preference test=both, drawing of a person5, inkblot=6, Total=11
• Participant #3 Christine- Preferred hand=right, preferred brain side on torque test=left, other brain preference test=both, drawing of a person=5.5, inkblot=5, Total--10.5
• Participant #4 Maxine- Preferred hand=right, preferred brain side on torque test=left, other brain preference test=left, drawing of a person=6, inkblot=4.5, Total 10.5
• Participant #5 Maile- Preferred hand preferred brain side on torque test=left, other brain preference test=both, drawing of a person=5, inkblot=4.5, Total=9.5
• Participant #6 Chris- Preferred hand=left, preferred brain side on torque test=both, other brain preference test=both, drawing of a person=4, inkblot=2, Total=6

(actual results are on the back)

When giving these tests I didn't tell what the tests were determining. I only told them it was for a school project. When they answered the questions they didn't hesitate at all because I told them not to and they didn't know what it was for. They were truly answering them, they weren't trying to be creative. Especially during the inkblot, I realized how different people see things, but every participant still saw at least one similar thing. Every participant said butterfly when they saw the ink blot. Some people could see many complicated pictures. Others could only see the obvious. One other interesting thing was the colors the participants chose to draw their picture with. The boys chose light, skin tone colors and the girls chose bold colors. It was hard to judge in the end because instead of focusing on their ability to draw, I had to look at my criteria to determine who was the most creative. I judged them a few times and I judged them tough too. All the points are pretty close and even though it is out of 20, the highest score is 13.

Evaluate

Since the results on the brain preference test almost all came out saying the participants use both sides of their brain equally, I focused on the torque test results in my conclusion. What I read from my data is that a person who is left handed and right brained is more creative than any other combination of preferred hand and brain side. This matches some of the research I read. Since the right side of the brain contains creativity and artistry then by manipulating more of the right side of a person's brain will make them more creative. Also, if a person is left handed then the right side of their brain is dominant, they have more practice using it. If a person were to have a combination of these, being left handed and right brained then they should have a higher chance of being more creative.

My hypothesis is somewhat correct when comparing it to my data. My hypothesis is that left handed people would be more creative than right handed people. I did not take in to account their preferred brain side. And now I do because it makes more sense and is part of my conclusion. My conclusion is that left handed people who are right brained are most creative when compared to any other combination of preferred hand and brain side. I agree with my conclusion. After reading the subject and finding many theories, but nothing set in stone, I didn't have too much to build on. So with my test and my findings I think that it could be true. Of course, I didn't have hundreds of people take my test, so I won't know for sure if it is true. I believe my conclusion has some truth to it.

Some choices I made that could have an effect on my results would be the way I chose to judge it. I judged it based on a scale I made and my own criteria. If someone else were to score the results, they may differ. I had a small number of participants, a larger number could have affected my data. I didn't have any drugs or technical equipment to test people to see where their brain is really affected. Yes, I do understand all the theories they are talking about in the books better now. It is hard to test whether or not someone is creative, which hand is dominant, and which brain side they prefer. All the definitions will be different, what makes someone creative or what makes a hand the dominant one. That makes it hard to test and get the same results.

For Next Time

For one thing I would definitely check up on the people whose theories I am reading. I figured I would get some for sure information, but pretty much all I got was old and new theories. There wasn't any real information and facts on this subject. I would have liked to know how much truth there is behind the theories, and also, read more on who wrote them. Some seemed like very opinionated people and may just really believe what they are saying, without it being true. The hardest thing to do out of the whole project, was trying to find left handed people to do my tests on. Other than that there were no problems.