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<DIV>In a message dated 4/24/2005 10:07:41 PM Eastern Daylight Time, ljohnson@solution-consulting.com writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT face=Arial>I thoroughly disagree with the premise. First, the idea of right-brain / left-brain has been thoroughly discounted. Second, the author is creating a false dichotomy. Most technical people are creative and artistic. Both my brother (Ph.D., chemical engineering) and my son (mechanical engineering) play jazz guitar. <BR>Lynn</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
<DIV>First, I agree that overly much had been made of hemisphericity and its supposed role in cultural as well as individual differences. </DIV>
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<DIV>Second, I also suspect that pervasive regional and subcultural differences in thinking patterns are sometimes real and when they *are* real, are indeed loosely related to different ways of using the same cognitive talents present in all of us (that is, using the same human brain in different ways). I don't see these two views as contradictory once we grasp the differences in logical levels between brain function and actually using the mind. </DIV>
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<DIV>The differences in the way the cerebral hemispheres work probably does plays a role in pervasive differences in thinking patterns, although the notion of "drawing on one side of the brain" is surely simplistic and isn't a very practical or accurate way of thinking about the implications of this. It implies that using your brain differently is like flexing your left arm rather than your right arm, which confuses function with neuroanatomy. The fact that some function of the brain has some relationship with a particular part of the brain doesn't tell us as much as one might think because we generally think of it as a mechanical relationship, whereas brain function is a partly a result of organized massive intercommunication, not just mechanical relationships between component parts. Also, the mind in action is structured partly by how it is used rather than (just) how it is wired. </DIV>
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<DIV>As a result, there are a couple of different ideas here that are usually confused together: (1) differences in cognitive patterns that vary in different environments (e.g. "cultural" thinking differences), and (2) cognitive differences related to hemisphericity, the specialization of the human cerebral cortex. </DIV>
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<DIV>In "Geography of Thought," Richard Nisbett does an early but plausible analysis of the factors that lead to pervasive culture thinking differences of the sort we used to associate with being "right" vs. "left" brained. His thesis: the organization of human groups, partly a result of ecological condtions, helps determine the way human beings form and process basic concepts and even influences basic perception in some ways. His thesis is tested in the laboratory and applied to speculations about geographical and cultural differences. </DIV>
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<DIV>Does this link back to the hemispheres? Possibly to some degree. Bob Ornstein, an early adopter of the strong hemisphericity thesis and later skeptic, finally gives a moderate account in "The Right Mind: Making Sense of the Hemispheres." Essentially he concludes that while the earlier interpretations of "creative" or "mystical" right brains and "logical" left brains were not supported in fact (nor even the idea that the right side is "mute"), it appears to be true that there is a profound evolutionary and developmental division where essentially the brain specializes into providing the context or big picture, and keeping track of the details. </DIV>
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<DIV>It isn't hard to see that keeping track of details would play a large role in Nisbett's Western cultural model of thinking, which emphasizes the properties of individual objects, and that providing context would play a large role in processing complex systemic relationships of the sort that characterize Nisbett's Asian model of thinking.</DIV>
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<DIV>Perhaps Nisbett's differences couldn't be manifested without Ornstein's differences, so we could rightly say they are linked in some way. On the other hand I think it would be wildly inaccurate to say that they are simply the same thing.</DIV>
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<DIV>Ornstein, Robert, (1998). "The Right Mind: Making Sense of the Hemispheres." Harvest Books.</DIV>
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<DIV>Nisbett, Richard (2003). "The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently and Why." Free Press.</DIV>
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<DIV>kind regards,</DIV>
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<DIV>Todd</DIV></BODY></HTML>