Mr Brain & Ms Brain www.theonlysocialclub.co.za
Research has found how the two are so completely different and how we can miss each other. Why does he listen with only one ear? How come she can’t read a road map? It’s all to do with the way our grey matter is structured.
She never stops talking. Even though men sometimes find it hard to believe, a woman can speak and listen at the same time. When a woman talks, an MRI scanner reveals that two very specific regions of her brain – in the left frontal hemisphere and in the right frontal hemisphere – are working together. The reason: female oestrogen permanently stimulates the links between the two brain hemispheres and encourages the nerve cells to build connections. Women therefore have 30 percent more neural connections dedicated to language.
Since the left hemisphere of the girl develops faster, she will speak earlier and better than her brother and she’ll learn foreign languages more easily.
In the male, the speech zone is spread across the left hemisphere and does not seem tied to a specific region. That could explain why men rely less on verbal communication, and equally why the core clientele of speech therapists, who treat problems linked to language, consist mainly of little boys.
He only listens with one ear.It’s true when a man is watching television, he simply doesn’t hear what you’re saying. There’s a definite physiological reason for this: the part of his brain that enables the two hemispheres to communicate is thinner than that of a woman. With his “compartmentalised” brain, a man can’t accomplish more than one task at a time. For example, in a meeting, even when he is concentrating, a man uses his right ear, which is linked to his “left brain,” the one responsible for the recognition of words.