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Encyclopedia of the History of Psychological Theories pp 160–172Cite as

Cerebral Dominance

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The concept of cerebral dominance refers to the functional inequality of the cerebral hemispheres. It does not hold that the right hemisphere controls the muscles of the left side of the body or that it receives the bulk ofthe sensory information relating to the left side, andthat theopposite is true for the left hemisphere. Rather, it relates to differences of adifferent sort – differences incognitive functions such as speaking, consciously comprehending spoken language, and dealing with the spatial world, as exemplified by using amap or trying to draw aclock or ahouse.

The current literature on cerebral dominance is massive and has experienced very rapid growth after the 1950s, stimulated in part by what was being discovered with split-brain patients. It is based on healthy and brain-damaged subjects, and awide variety of tools. Some of the information gained has come from postmortems and other anatomical studies, and even more is now coming from physiological studies, especially...

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  1. Department of Psychology, Programs in Neuroscience and Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology, Washington University, Campus Box 1125, St. Louis, MO, 63130-4899, USA

    Stanley Finger

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Correspondence to Stanley Finger .

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  1. Department of Psychology, Fordham University, New York, NY, USA

    Robert W. Rieber

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Finger, S. (2012). Cerebral Dominance. In: Rieber, R.W. (eds) Encyclopedia of the History of Psychological Theories. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0463-8_160

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