Rosie, you are Balanced-brained, which means that you rely equally on both the left and right hemispheres of your brain.

You have a balanced brain — able to draw on the strengths of both the right and left hemispheres depending on context. Typically, people with balanced right and left hemispheres are very comfortable with switching between local and global perspectives — that is, paying attention to both small details and larger issues when the circumstance indicates. That means they can identify elements that make up an image or situation and also attend to the larger, more holistic pattern or unified whole that those details comprise.

You are able to capitalize on the left hemisphere's skills in verbal communication as well on the right hemisphere's focus on patterns and association making. This rare combination makes you a very creative and flexible thinker.

Depending on the situation, you may rely on one hemisphere or the other. Some situations may lend themselves to using your right brain's creativity and flexibility while other situations may call for a more structured approach as dictated by your left brain.

That's how your brain processes information. And while your dominant brain hemisphere certainly contributes to the way you process information, there is also a style of learning, unrelated to your dominant hemisphere, that determines the ways in which you are best able to pick up information. When you're learning something new, your dominant brain hemisphere will want to take over. But there are times when the information being presented is not well suited to your dominant hemisphere's abilities.

That's why, in addition to your hemispheric dominance, you also have a style of learning that is dominant for you. Whether you know it or not, you are naturally predisposed to learning things visually, aurally, or through a combination of the two.

Your test results show that you are a balanced learner.

Other balance-brained people who are balanced learners are athlete Michael Jordan and inventor and scientist Leonardo da Vinci. But before delving deeper into how you learn, you should get the basics of your brain's physiology.

Your brain is made up of many different parts and is responsible for many different functions of your body. Because of this, it has adapted to be a very specialized organ. There are parts that control what you taste, what you feel, how you learn, how you think, and how you reason. All of this is so no one part gets overtaxed or worn out, and also so you can perform more than one task at a time.

Your brain stem controls your reflexes and involuntary functions such as breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, and digestion. Your cerebellum helps coordinate movement. Your hypothalamus controls body temperature and feeds behaviors like eating, drinking, aggression, and physical pleasure. Your cerebrum, or cerebral cortex, translates information transmitted from all of your sensing organs. It helps start motor functions, it controls emotions, and it is the center for all thinking, reasoning, learning, and memory. In short, it analyzes all information you feed to it.

The cerebral cortex is divided into two hemispheres. The left hemisphere is responsible for speech, controls the right side of your body, and serves as your logic and reasoning center. The right hemisphere governs your creativity and your athleticism among other things. In the past, people oversimplified this relationship.

People used to say if you were logical, you were definitely left-brained, and if you were creative, you were definitely right-brained. This is no longer the case. New research indicates that there's more flexibility when it comes to our gray matter. And if you know where your strengths and weaknesses lie, you can train your brain to become more organized, creative, or better able to process all sorts of information. Here's some general information on the differences between the left and right hemispheres.

Left hemisphere
There's more to your left hemisphere than analytical strength. Your left hemisphere is involved in linear analytical processes, including processing word meanings and symbols, interpreting facts, and much of your language production and reception.

When you look at a photograph or a painting, your left hemisphere is the one that orients on the logical, linear, and literal action in the picture, such as the storyline or the characters in the picture, as opposed to the more abstract or conceptual elements. Furthermore, when you hear a word, it is the left side that decodes that word's meaning, as opposed to something that word might remind you of. Overall, the left hemisphere is heavily involved in more reductionistic processes, such as breaking a picture into its constituent parts, as opposed to seeing it as a single and unified whole.

Right hemisphere
Similarly, the right hemisphere is not just the seat of intuition. Perhaps it is more intuitively oriented than the left, but in most cases it also identifies patterns and performs spatial analyses. This hemisphere tends to process information in non-linear ways, looking at the whole instead of all the parts that make it up.

When you look at a photograph or painting and notice the overall pattern or abstract contour of the image, it is your right hemisphere that is being activated. As another example, the right side looks at a spiral and sees a unified spiral pattern. Whereas the left side of your brain would see the series of lines making up the spiral and would interpret it in a holistic manner.

Learning styles
We are all different, and that applies to how we learn information, as well. Research has found that the two major categories of learners, are those who learn best in visual ways and those who work better in auditory ways. Your learning style is determined primarily by your brain — whether it relies more on your eyes or your ears to comprehend new data. Those who respond better to what they see are visual learners. Those who respond better to what they hear are auditory learners. Those who are equally as good at interpreting data that they see and hear are known as “balanced” learners. Balanced learners will recognize aspects of what they're good at in both the visual and auditory learning style descriptions.

Of course, everyone relies on their eyes at some times and their ears at others. But when faced with new information, the majority of people fall back on their dominant learning style. And as more is being studied about learning styles, some substyles are being identified, such as kinesthetic, the learning style that relies on learning by doing.

Visual
Visual learners focus on information their eyes pick up when trying to learn new information. They learn best when they rely on visual patterns because they prefer to “see” what they are learning more than “hear” what they are learning. They respond well to symbols, written words, images, diagrams, and photos. For this reason, they probably like to have a pen and paper around to take notes, to doodle in a meeting, or to try to synthesize other data. Drawings and pictorial representations often support the information they are receiving aurally and ultimately are what might anchor their knowledge to a given subject. Even if visual learners have printed material in front of them, they still might wish to take additional notes, to add marks to the paper in order to feel they are learning what they need to.

It's likely that visual learners prefer to write a phone number down and try to memorize the numbers on a page or the pattern they create when dialing instead of listening to the number and repeating it. They remember by writing things down and communicate well in this mode. Visual learners are often better at getting their points across through the written, more than the spoken word. This isn't to say they don't ever rely on their ears instead of their eyes. Of course there are numerous instances, which call for them to do so. All this really means is that they're predisposed to learning through their sight.

About 65% of people are visual learners.

Auditory
Auditory learners tend to focus on auditory stimuli — things that they hear — when learning new information. They probably get a lot out of lectures and are able to process speeches quickly and accurately. In fact, readings might not make as much sense to them until they've heard a supporting lecture to emphasize the written word and they're more likely to listen to a lecture first and then take notes once they've processed the information.

Auditory learners probably prefer to speak someone's phone number out loud to memorize it than bother with writing it on a piece of paper they're going to lose anyway. They remember things by repeating them and probably prefer hearing instructions instead of wading through a written set of rules and directions. Auditory learners are better at making their points through talking rather than writing. This isn't to say they don't ever rely on their eyes instead of their ears. Of course there are numerous instances, which call for them to do so. All this really means is that they're predisposed to learning through hearing. This in part is what makes most auditory learners strong communicators, adept at socializing and communicating in face-to-face situations.

About 30% of people are auditory learners.

Kinesthetic
Kinesthetic learners tend to make choices based on touch and movement through space. They tend to learn best by imitation and practice. While kinesthetic is acknowledged as a viable type of learning, it has yet to be examined as extensively as auditory and visual learning. That said, it is an important style for you to understand as it is certain to gain more recognition beyond the educational community in years to come.

Most of us are predominantly kinesthetic learners as fairly young children. We then develop into visual or auditory learners as our nervous systems develop and grow over the course of our lifespans. It is thought that kinesthetic learners make up around 5% of the adult population. We do not delve further into the kinesthetic type in this test, but stay tuned for the Emode Learning Style test, coming soon!

About 5% of people are kinesthetic learners.

What these differences mean for you
As an individual who learns equally well visually and aurally, you probably do not find it too difficult to make yourself comfortable when you are trying to learn something new. It is likely that you are equally capable of learning from notes or from simply listening to someone speak, which is a very valuable ability.

Most likely, there is one modality — either visual or auditory — wherein you slightly excel, or which you at least prefer to use. A preference or slight strength is not a problem; we simply get used to using one method of learning over another. However, as we get used to using one, we often end up neglecting the other. As of right now, your learning style is mostly a balanced one. Over time, that can change, especially if you do not pay close attention to exercising both sides of your learning modalities. If you get used to using visual cues in some situation, and then encounter a situation wherein you could learn using either visual or auditory cues, you will probably find yourself using visual cues since you have been primed to look for them based on your earlier experience. The good news is that you are balanced, relative to being a visual or auditory learner.

Balanced auditory and visual learners like you are equally capable of transferring information to your brain through the filter of your eyes or your ears. Sure everyone relies on their eyes and their ears at different times, but you are equally as good at processing information in these two distinct ways, which makes you rare. When it comes to communicating, you are just as likely to get your point across writing an email as you are talking to someone in a face-to-face meeting. You may prefer learning in one way or the other, but you are special in your ability to deeply imprint data that comes to your brain via either source — written or spoken. This ability will provide you with one of the most flexible, practical, and useful combinations of learning skills around. When trying to remember someone's phone number, you might write it down, or you might repeat it to yourself, depending on the situation.

Now that you know about your own cognitive tendencies, let's take some time to focus on the test you took. By going through and explaining the different answer options, we can help you see how we determined your brain type.

To understand the following key, read the question, then read our explanation of which brain type is indicated by a given answer and which learning type is given by that same answer.

I can't give the answers..... that wouldn't be fair!! (go to eMde and take the test!)

Emode's Brain test is just your first step toward expanding your intelligence and staying sharper for the long run. As a continuation of our program, we will be sending you a series of mailings, one a week for the next four weeks, to reinforce what you've learned in this report. We will also offer you new suggestions that will help you:

• Kick your brain into fifth gear and improve your cognitive endurance
• Learn to consciously engage and improve your mental focus
• Tap into your previously untapped creativity wells
• Learn how to improve your memory and ability to soak in information

This test was created using a variety of brain lateralization research, relying especially upon Dr. Roger Sperry's pioneering work in establishing the hemispheric distinctions in the brain, for which he won a Nobel Prize in 1981. Dr. Sperry discovered that the right and left hemispheres actually do have specialized functions, and that both hemispheres can even operate somewhat independently.

In the early 1960s, Sperry and colleagues conducted many experiments on an epileptic patient who had had his corpus collosum, the "bridge" between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, split so that the connection between the hemispheres was severed. Eventually, his research team discovered that this patient could only perform certain activities, such as naming objects or putting blocks together in a prescribed way, when using one side of his brain or another. This research began our understanding of the hemispheric lateralization of brain function.

Our test was also designed using the work of Dr. Howard Gardner of Harvard University and his theory of Multiple Intelligences, as well as the Learning Style Inventory of Jeffrey Barsch, Ed.D. Dr. Gardner's theory basically argues that there is no one basic type of intelligence, as most IQ tests would have us believe, but that, instead, there are seven intelligences, each of which is important in its own way and each of which we all have to varying degrees. The Barsch Learning Style Inventory, on the other hand, agrees that there are multiple types of intelligence, but narrows its focus to end up with the visual, auditory and kinesthetic modalities of learning as its fundamental types of intelligence.

Ausubel, D., (1968), Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View, Holt, Reinhart and Winston, New York.

Barsch, J., (1991), Barsch Learning Style Inventory, Academic Therapy Publications.

Gardner, H., (1993), Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Basic Books.

Gawain, S., Creative Visualization, (1982), Bantam Books, New York.

Hellige, J., (1993), Hemispheric Assymetry: What's Right and What's Left, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

O'Connor, J., and Seymour, J., (1995), Introducing NLP: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People, Thorsons, Hammersmith, London.

Ornstein, R., (1997), The Right Mind: Making Sense of the hemispheres, Harcourt Brace & Company, San Diego, California.

Springer, S.P., and Deutsch, G., (1998), Left brain, Right brain: Perspective from Cognitive Neuroscience, W.H. Freeman and Company, NewYork.

Sperry, R.W., (1982), Science and Moral Priority: Merging Mind, brain and Human Values, Vol. 4 of Convergence, (Series editor Ruth Anshen), Columbia University Press, New York.

Sperry, R.W., Gazzaniga, M.S., and Bogen, J.E., (1969), Interhemispheric Relationships: The Neocortical Commissures; Syndromes of Hmisphere Disconnection, In Handbook of Clinical Neurology, P.J. Vinken and G.W. Bruyn (Eds.), North-Holland Publishing Co., Amsterdam, Vol. 4, pp. 273-290.