Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watmath.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!jagardner
From: jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner)
Newsgroups: net.bio
Subject: Re: Left and Right Brain
Message-ID: <14006@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Apr-85 17:30:48 EST
Article-I.D.: watmath.14006
Posted: Thu Apr 18 17:30:48 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 18-Apr-85 23:46:24 EST
References: <921@ubc-vision.CDN>
Reply-To: jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 42

In article <921@ubc-vision.CDN> majka@ubc-vision.CDN (Marc Majka) writes:
>The Left/Right brain theory is just too pat.  No one yet understands much
>about how the brain works, except to know that it is exceedingly complex.
>The Left/Right brain theory is better left in the pages of the National
>Enquirer or the Journal of Irrepreducable Results.
>
>---
>Marc Majka - UBC Laboratory for Computational Vision

I agree that the Left/Right brain theory has been used to account for
many many things without much basis in observation, but to say that it
is better left in the pages of the National Enquirer goes too far.

Recently, DISCOVER ran a few articles on left/right brain disparity.
The greatest disparity is that verbal skills seem entirely located on
the left side of the brain.  This has been detected by EEG readings (which
half of the brain is working when you're talking) and by tranquilizing
half the brain (when you conk out the left half, you can't talk, even
though you can sing).  Since logic is so heavily bound in with verbal
skills, the left half of the brain tends to be more active when you are
involved in logical thinking.

The left/right brain disparity has produced many fascinating results.
One interesting fact noted in the Science Column of The Toronto Globe & Mail
several years ago was related to the fact I mentioned earlier: that
singing appears to be a right brain rather than left brain activity.
They reported that in people with little musical training, the right
brain was more active when singing and listening to music.  In people
with a good deal of musical training, the left brain was more active.
This suggests why a good deal of symphonic music is less accessible
to untrained listeners -- it appeals to a different mental set than
simple melodic stuff.

One interesting book on the left/right brain difference is The Rainbow
and the Sphinx (sorry, I can't remember the author).  For those with
more outre tastes, you might check out The Origin of Consciousness
in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes.  Jaynes has
an interesting theory about what the right brain used to do while the
left brain was busy talking.

			Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo