Roger Sperry August 20, 1913 – April 17, 1994 "The great pleasure and feeling in my right brain… … is more than my left brain can find the words to tell you."

Biography Sperry was born in Hartford, Connecticut, August 20, 1913 He went to Hall High School in West Hartford, Connecticut, then graduated with scholarship to Oberlin College where he received his bachelors in English in 1935, and a masters degree in psychology in 1937 He later received his Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Chicago In 1942, he began work at the Yerkes Laboratories of Primate Biology which was then a part of Harvard University. In 1952, he became the Section Chief of Neurological Diseases and Blindness at the National Institutes of Health. In 1954, he accepted a position as a professor at the California Institute of Technology California where he performed his most famous experiments. He died On April 17, 1994

In the 1960’s, Roger Sperry carried out experiments concerning the left and right hemispheres of the brain and their functions called the split brain experiment. The studies demonstrated that the left and right hemispheres specialized in different tasks. The left side of the brain: Specialises in analytical and verbal tasks. Speaks much better than the right side The right side: Space perception tasks Music Reading maps Giving directions Can only produce basic words and phrases Contributes emotionally The Split Brain experiments

In his most famous study, for which he won the Nobel prize, Sperry split the corpus callosum, the area between the left and right hemispheres which transfers signals between the two, to treat epileptics. Sperry tested 10 patients with tasks that were known to be dependent on either left or right hemispheres of the brain and demonstrated that the two halves of the brain may contain individual consciousness. In his words, each hemisphere is... "indeed a conscious system in its own right, perceiving, thinking, remembering, reasoning, willing, and emoting, all at a characteristically human level, and... both the left and the right hemisphere may be conscious simultaneously in different, even in mutually conflicting, mental experiences that run along in parallel." This research greatly contributed to understanding of the human brain and the connection between the left and right hemispheres. Sperry’S Contribution