The viral Shoe from 2017 is back to haunt everyone this spooky season, with some new pop science behind it. The internet, including Lizzo, is very shaken over this Vans Old Skool sneaker photo because some people see grey and teal, and other people see pink and white. Lizzo shared the image on her Instagram, writing, “I SEE GREY & TEAL BUT MY WHOLE TEAM SEES PINK & WHITE HELP 😩😩😩😩🤯🤯🤯”
Now the shoe photo comes with a caption attributing people seeing different colors to brain dominance: Left-brained people (those who are more logical, since the regions of the brain that handle language, analytical thinking, and number are on the left side) see grey and teal, while right-brained people (those who are more creative, since the regions of the brain that handle expression, emotional intelligence, and imagination are on the right side) see white and pink.
It’s a fun theory to think about—that you may use one side more than another, and it influences your personality—but brain dominance is ultimately a pop psychology myth. And the colors you saw in the shoe weren’t because of brain dominance in 2017 and likely aren’t now: it’s just a new twist that helped the image go viral again.
VeryWell Mind has a great breakdown of why the idea of left-brain vs. right-brain dominant people took off and what the science actually is behind it. The reality is both sides of the brain collaborate to do tasks, although sometimes activity can be higher in certain regions of the brain than others.
Science writer Carl Zimmer, who VeryWell featured in its piece, summed up succinctly why the left vs right brain is off for a 2009 Discover magazine article he wrote.
“No matter how lateralized the brain can get, though, the two sides still work together,” he wrote. “The pop psychology notion of a left brain and a right brain doesn’t capture their intimate working relationship. The left hemisphere specializes in picking out the sounds that form words and working out the syntax of the words, for example, but it does not have a monopoly on language processing. The right hemisphere is actually more sensitive to the emotional features of language, tuning in to the slow rhythms of speech that carry intonation and stress.”