Brain Hemisphere Dominance

[ShiftedSinister]

Hello, first post.

I am interested in the brain hemisphere dominance subject. I know very little about it, really, but would like some familiarization on the topic.

Does forcing right handedness cause any problems if you were naturally left handed? I include in this question the following; Would (or should) forcing right handedness tend to change the hemisphere dominance in any way?

Let's say the person forced to be right handed still retains overwhelming right hemisphere dominance, but is able to (apparently) change at will. By that I mean, there is a test of a spinning figure which revolves one way or another depending on hemisphere dominance. What if a person can see the figure rotating either way as they see fit? Is this normally the case in forced right handed people? Does this have any effects of any kind, detrimental or otherwise, during the growing up period and after? I mean as in social cohesion, behavior, ability to learn (both, exceptional in some topics and completely stranded in others).

I will expand a little on this considering the person after having been forced right handed;

1. Exceptional ability to draw as a child, from an early age, including themes like perspective and lighting, without having being taught. I will also add to this, the ability to build complex and accurate models with building bricks. The age range I refer to is between 2 to 5 years of age.
2. A certain inability to initiate or sustain conversations with people - throughout life - with a few exceptions (not necessarily because of shared interests, by the way).
3. Inability to learn basic maths (eg; times table) by memory, but able to comprehend mathematical formulas or fields (eg; trigonometry) with little difficulty.
4. Some early confusion of right and left, solved in late teens.
5. No problems in following career(s) of a highly technical nature, except for the social convention involved. In fact, having been selected specifically for posts that involve extricating company departments from crisis management situations, and succeeding in doing so.
6. Very clear memories from an age most people do not remember (as from 2 years old).
7. Apparently having some delay in processing verbal information (as if it is being passed through a filter), before being able to respond. This is by comparison to what others expect as a reasonable response time.
8. Will still naturally do things left handed if a new ability is presented (bow and arrow shooting, guitar, etc).
9. Can write still with the left hand, from right to left, with mirror images of letters.
10. In some situations, goal orientation bordering on being compulsive or maybe even obsessive. I am unsure if this is a personality trait or something enhanced / initiated by forcing right handedness while retaining right dominance.

I will admit to myself being the subject of this curiosity. And, yes, it is a curiosity only. I do not under any circumstance consider myself abnormal.

[Enigma]

The concepts of "left brain-right brain" and cerebral dominance are very misunderstood in pop culture.  The brain operates contralaterally, meaning that the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and vice versa.  Simple tasks are lateralized to areas in a specific hemisphere while more complex tasks involve both hemispheres of the brain working in tandem; there is no "dominant" side that lords over the other.  I've seen the spinning figure you mentioned (pretty sure it was posted here at some point) and as a right hander I've seen it rotate in both directions.  I did a little research, and I found this article that suggests forced right handedness results in structural changes in the brain. 

[sakoz]

ShiftedSinister; Interesting topic. From a observers perspective, ambidexterity seems like a plus. The only possible 'problem' I see is what the person being 'forced' to change handedness is what 'they think about' "having" to do so. After having read (most of) the article that Enigma referred to, I qualify my opinion. Do you have "thoughts/beliefs" about "having to" change handedness? Those beliefs might possibly be a 'problem'; the rest I don't know about at all. (Your #10 is perceptive, not to use 'forced change' as scapegoat,etc.)
( 'ShiftedSinister' suggests interesting connotations).

[Zepher08]

Not that this reply will answer any particular question ...

If you are interested in more balance with right and left ... get involved with physical experiences that involve the use both right and left sides of the body.

[ShiftedSinister]

If you are interested in more balance with right and left ... get involved with physical experiences that involve the use both right and left sides of the body.

(Chuckle) I think I have already had the experience, but thanks for the suggestion, anyway.

Enigma:
So, I was right in my initial assumption that there was a certain amount of old hogs-wash associated with this topic. As one inevitably meets people who are self taught "students of the mind" and whom take the license to extrapolate what they have read on the subject, someone was a bit taken by the left handed backwards writing ability and seeded the curiosity in me that eventually led to this post. About that trait in particular, I will clarify;

It was not something that I "discovered I could do by accident". Up until I was about ten, I had the feeling I was always doing something wrong when being "corrected" and shown how things were done right handed. After that age, I was aware of a reasonable number of left handed people and attempted to write left handed to see if I was able to, knowing that this was how it would have been. I found myself writing some letters back to front (lower case d instead of b, q instead of p, and backwards e, a, z and such). So I went with the flow and attempted writing "away from the center" and found that I could do that just about as naturally as I could write correctly right handed.

Now, I was an instructor several years ago, and in the training to become one we are taught that the process of learning is "multifaceted". That is to say, while teaching one subject, your students are inevitably learning or reinforcing other divergent topics along the way. Naturally, by their own personal associations to the topic you are teaching. It seems this is also possible at a motor level, too, sort of subliminally, as in the case of the backwards writing. I will stress that there was no great sessions of practicing writing backwards with my left hand. At least, that is my view of it (Snap, there I go extrapolating!)

sakoz:
As to whether I am inhibited in any way by having been forced to be right handed, I do not believe it is  so, excluding perhaps the initial "discomfort" of having to do things not the way I preferred doing them, and maybe the early feeling that the way of my preference was wrong. Once I realized that I was being "conformed to some convention", as it were, I did not have a great issue with it. And, all of my early drawing was done, without any qualms, using my right hand.

Thanks for the replies. My curiosity is satisfied.

[INTP]

This left/right brain dominance thing is next to bullshit.

I suggest watching this video, it will give you bit more understanding how this stuff works:
 

Basically its true that there are slightly different functions for different brain hemispheres and some people have preference for some areas on other side than another, but they also have preferences to some areas in other hemispheres. so everyone is left and right dominant, but if you look at some small single areas, like areas involved with movement, but there are so many areas that there is some other functional area where preference is on the other side. And to complicate this a bit more, quite many processes use both sides of the brains and there is a dominance for functional patterns that involve both hemispheres.