<p>They did it on a monkey. It was trained to pick up something with its left or right hand according to a signal. Then they split its brain and tested it. I can't remember all the details but the experiment did not bring more to the human experiments. If you are still interested I can find the link or article.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-08-16T22:28:57.927Z
Please find the paper!
AliceD
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-04-19T02:03:34.320Z
@AliceD I didn't forget!  I looked for this paper but  never found it. It's lost in all my bookmarks...
ceillac
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-02-03T04:37:56.733Z
2016-02-03T04:37:56.733Z
ceillac
<p>I definitely agree, and so have many of my intro psych classes! I'm only as familiar with split brain research as my intro students are though (okay, maybe a little more than that), so I'd love to see more answers here. As for mine, I don't have any references to contribute from comparative (animal) psychology...All I have to offer is an Intro Psych classic with which you might already be familiar: <a href="http://youtu.be/lfGwsAdS9Dc" rel="nofollow noreferrer">an episode of Scientific American Frontiers that features Mike Gazzaniga's research</a>. My personal favorite among the brief series of tests (quasi-experiments at best) portrayed here is the one that starts at about 5 minutes and 40 seconds in, because it involves a rationalization by the "Man with two brains" of his own subjective experience. Serious mental gymnastics on display right there.</p>

<p><strong>Edit:</strong> The parts of the question I answered mostly have just been edited out. I should add that anyone interested in split-brain research in general might find other questions here that mention <a href="https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/search?q=%22split+brain%22">"split brain"</a> or <a href="https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/search?q=&quot;split-brain&quot;">"split-brain"</a> interesting as well.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-04-13T02:10:15.117Z
Now seeking comments from the mystery downvoter...
Nick Stauner
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-01-22T14:06:20.863Z
TBH, I realize I could've said more about what we've learned from Gazzaniga's research in this answer. I can edit some of that in more explicitly some other time if anyone would appreciate that, but it's essentially all there in the video itself. (It's a good video! I barely have anything to add even when I use this in class!) Meanwhile, here's [another review of Gazzaniga's research from Nature](http://www.nature.com/news/the-split-brain-a-tale-of-two-halves-1.10213)!
Nick Stauner
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-01-22T14:02:20.443Z
2014-01-27T06:53:18.380Z
2017-04-13T12:56:16.467Z
Nick Stauner
<p>I was wondering what would happen if you took a split brain person and stimulated the pleasure center of one hemisphere and the pain center of the other hemisphere in conjunction with an external stimulus... basically Pavlov's Dog but applied differently to the two halves of the brain of the same person.  Of course, such an experiment is highly cruel and unethical, so it's safe to assume it was never done on a human.</p>

<p>So, that got me wondering... we often experiment on animals when a procedure is too cruel to perform on humans (for better or worse, I'm not here to debate the ethics of animal experimentation).  Are there any split brain experiments that we've done on animals that we haven't tried on humans?  What have we learned from these experiments?</p>

<experimental-psychology>
Split Brain Experiments on Animals
ChickenGod
# Split Brain Experiments on Animals

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-01-22)

I was wondering what would happen if you took a split brain person and stimulated the pleasure center of one hemisphere and the pain center of the other hemisphere in conjunction with an external stimulus... basically Pavlov's Dog but applied differently to the two halves of the brain of the same person. Of course, such an experiment is highly cruel and unethical, so it's safe to assume it was never done on a human.

So, that got me wondering... we often experiment on animals when a procedure is too cruel to perform on humans (for better or worse, I'm not here to debate the ethics of animal experimentation). Are there any split brain experiments that we've done on animals that we haven't tried on humans? What have we learned from these experiments?

**Tags:** experimental-psychology


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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2016-02-03. Score: 1

They did it on a monkey. It was trained to pick up something with its left or right hand according to a signal. Then they split its brain and tested it. I can't remember all the details but the experiment did not bring more to the human experiments. If you are still interested I can find the link or article.

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: Please find the paper!  
> **username_1**: @username_2 I didn't forget!  I looked for this paper but  never found it. It's lost in all my bookmarks...  

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### Answer by username_3 on 2014-01-22. Score: 1

I definitely agree, and so have many of my intro psych classes! I'm only as familiar with split brain research as my intro students are though (okay, maybe a little more than that), so I'd love to see more answers here. As for mine, I don't have any references to contribute from comparative (animal) psychology...All I have to offer is an Intro Psych classic with which you might already be familiar: [an episode of Scientific American Frontiers that features Mike Gazzaniga's research](http://youtu.be/lfGwsAdS9Dc). My personal favorite among the brief series of tests (quasi-experiments at best) portrayed here is the one that starts at about 5 minutes and 40 seconds in, because it involves a rationalization by the "Man with two brains" of his own subjective experience. Serious mental gymnastics on display right there.

**Edit:** The parts of the question I answered mostly have just been edited out. I should add that anyone interested in split-brain research in general might find other questions here that mention ["split brain"](https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/search?q=%22split+brain%22) or ["split-brain"](https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/search?q=) interesting as well.

> **Comments:**
> **username_3**: TBH, I realize I could've said more about what we've learned from Gazzaniga's research in this answer. I can edit some of that in more explicitly some other time if anyone would appreciate that, but it's essentially all there in the video itself. (It's a good video! I barely have anything to add even when I use this in class!) Meanwhile, here's [another review of Gazzaniga's research from Nature](http://www.nature.com/news/the-split-brain-a-tale-of-two-halves-1.10213)!  
> **username_3**: Now seeking comments from the mystery downvoter...  

---

