Self Recognition Linked to Right Brain
L O N D O N, Jan. 18 -- If the face in the photo isn't familiarand it's your own, chances are there could be a problem in theright side of the brain.
In research published in the science journal Nature onWednesday, scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centerin Boston have shown that the ability to recognize who we areis linked to brain activity in one side of the brain.
"It's not an all or nothing phenomenon, but recognizingone's own face appears to be a preferential ability of theright hemisphere," said Julian Keenan, a cognitive psychologistat the Massachusetts hospital.
Marilyn Monroe, Bill Clinton Photos Used
He and his colleagues tested the ability of five epilepsypatients being tested for brain surgery to recognize themselvesin an image morphed with an image of a famous person. In thepreoperative tests each side of the brain was anesthetized.
Each female patient was morphed with image of MarilynMonroe or Princess Diana, while the men assumed the likeness ofBill Clinton or Albert Einstein.
Afterward all of the patients remembered their own imagewhen the morphed image was shown while the left side of thebrain was anesthetized, but four recognized the famous personwhen the right side was numbed.
In another experiment the scientists monitored the brainactivity of 10 healthy hospital employees while they looked ata morphed image of themselves and a famous person and anotherimage of a morphed colleague.
The researchers noticed more brain activity on the rightside of the brain when the staff members looked at their ownmorphed image.
"One of the astonishing findings in psychology is thathumans and apes are the only species that recognize their ownfaces in mirrors," Keenan said in a statement.
"It has been thought that this ability is a hallmark ofconsciousness. To know that our own face is ours inevitablyrequires a knowledge of the self. Without self-knowledge, itwould be seemingly impossible to recognize who we are," headded.
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