Research: Brainstorming (2)
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It has been reported in scientific literature that spatial tasks are better performed by the right
hemisphere (right brain) and many people in the field of popular psychology take the stand that drawing unlocks the right hemisphere.
While it is true that drawing may help us to unlock latent creative talents that can generalize to problem solving, it is not at all clear,
according to Buzan and to recent developments in science, that drawing may solely involve the right hemisphere.
As there are a multitude of programs aimed at business and promising to unlock the right hemisphere
through imagery and drawing, it is extremely important for you to know the initial research that led to the discovery of this right hemisphere
superiority and recent developments in the field.
Virtually all of the early left brain/right brain research was conducted by Roger Sperry and his associates on split-brain
humans. Briefly, split-brain humans have had their corpus callosums surgically severed as a means of controlling severe epilepsy. It is
through experiments with these people that our knowledge of hemispheric functioning began. In fact in 1981, Roger Sperry received the Nobel
Prize in Physiology/Medicine for this research.
Michael Gazzaniga was one of Sperry's students at the time of the initial research. In Gazzaniga's book, The Social Brain
(1985), he discusses the initial experiment that showed the right hemisphere advantage for spatial tasks. A split-brain subject was shown
a picture of a geometric figure, was given blocks, and was instructed to construct the figure. The left hand, which is controlled mainly by the
fight hemisphere, had no problem with this task.
The right hand, which is controlled mainly by the left hemisphere, was unable to do the task. When both hands were allowed to
work together on the task, the left would make progress while the right would often interfere, dominate, and halt progress. It was from
experiments such as these that the right brain became known as the hemisphere specialised for visuo-spatial tasks. It is important to keep
in mind that the initial research reported above was conducted in 1961.
Since that time, science has been constantly developing finer techniques for testing the cerebral hemispheres of both
spilt-brain and normal people.
The results of these subsequent tests appear to show that much of the differences between the hemispheres lie not in the
nature of the stimuli but what is to be done with the stimuli. In other words, differences appear to lie in processing styles, with the left
hemisphere processing information in a serial or step-by-step manner, and the right hemisphere processing information in a parallel, holistic,
or simultaneous manner.
The interested reader is referred to an invaluable book, Ornstein's The Psychology of Consciousness.
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