'Unity of Contrasts' Chapter 12 from the book 'Behind the Scenes of the Brain Show', Part Four
Gender differences in brain activation profile
Although this opinion is a generalization, with its multitude of sins, and there is no dispute that every person, man or woman in our world is unique mainly by virtue of the uniqueness of their mind, some argue, as an educated guess, that in the average male brain certain behavior patterns will stand out more that are accepted to belong mainly to the activity of the right hemisphere, such as The pursuit of innovation, boldness and the wanderlust. According to this opinion, in the male brain there will be patterns of behavior created by the right amygdala, which mediates impulses and impulsive reactions in a more prominent way. This opinion is controversial and the evidentiary infrastructure for it does not provide a reason to consider it a "complete truth".
The similar and the different
The interrelationships between the two hemispheres, the right as a differentiator, emphasizing the different and the new and the left as finding similarities to the familiar, as a generalist and as an attractor to the basins of familiar insights, are, according to a common assumption, at the basis of our cognitive products.
Inclusion and uniqueness - the same goes for humans. Even though all human beings are built in a similar physiological format, which also leads to a similar psychological format and a number of points of similarity in our cognitive processes, on the other hand, each person creates a unique emotional and cognitive climate in the planet of his skull, in terms of a unique ecological niche.
Some will say that the mixture of the right style of finding the difference and the left style - of finding the similar is evident not only in "passive absorption of stimuli" - as a reflection of the world of phenomena by the sense organs, but also in the production of original thoughts, born of our inner world of thought.
Sayings such as that of Ecclesiastes "There is nothing new under the sun", can be seen as reflecting the insight of the left hemisphere, and were probably said in his old age, while through the lens of the left hemisphere many things appear to be new variations on a familiar theme.
The spiritual legacy of Charles Darwin, responsible for one of the most shocking revolutions of thought in human history, can serve as an example of the benefits that may be inherent in seeing the similar, that is, looking through the lens of the left hemisphere.
For years, naturalists have been busy finding more and more species of life and plants, while emphasizing the characteristics of the differences between them. Semiology flourished, when more species and subspecies were added, and signs were given in them as evidence of subtle differences between them. Right-hemisphere driven thinking ruled the dome. On the other hand, Darwin saw the similarity, the commonality of the different life forms and from this his insight grew in relation to the organizing principle of the development of life. It can be said that at the beginning of his journey, when he sailed on board the bagel to the ends of the earth for about five years, his right hemisphere, the daring explorer of the unknown, was at the basis of the decision. But in the process of formulating his insights over the years, the tendency to the left is reflected. His insight moves from the pole of the uniqueness of the individuals to the pole of their commonality - in the spirit of the "unity of the multiplicity".
He published his book, "The Origin of the Species", at a relatively old age, perhaps as an expression of the left hemisphere approach that was then maturing within him.
Broom - a tool for transporting dust or a tool for transporting witches? An interesting theory is that creativity is made possible due to the availability of a structural infrastructure that tends to plasticity and the creation of a new neural network, which encodes new information, apparently mainly in the right hemisphere. The left hemisphere tends to associate a new concept in a concrete and "mundane" way, and does not usually sail into the far realms of the imagination. It seems that it tends to have less flexibility in the structural infrastructure in which the information is stored. A likely link that will be created in the left hemisphere for the word "broom" is "a tool for transporting dust from one place to another", and on the other hand, a likely link in the right hemisphere would be - "a tool for transporting witches from one place to another".
Age-dependent changes in the hemispheric activation profile
With our maturity, our mind goes through a reorganization, which carries with it disadvantages as well as advantages.
A young brain tends to an asymmetric activity pattern in which the right hemisphere is usually more active. A middle-aged brain tends to have an activity profile that involves more brain regions than a young brain. This, in contrast to the belief that prevailed in the past and assumed that an elderly brain is in a state of "lack of activity". The middle-aged brain tends to a more symmetrical pattern of activity, involving more of the left hemisphere, but not neglecting the right hemisphere. It seems that this pattern of activity facilitates the emotion and the logic for generation in one submission, and they agree more with each other.
The movement of the hemispherical pendulum
The view that ties together the movement of the cognitive center of gravity and the movement of the emotional center of gravity from the right hemisphere to the left during our lives, is an explanation that can correspond to the common insight in the world of geometry about a necessary and sufficient condition. And this view also has the spirit of the principle of simplification known as "Ockam's Razor", which claims that the simple explanation, which adequately explains the nature of things, will be preferred over a more complex explanation that explains them.
As mentioned, with maturity a more cooperative activation pattern is observed in the brain, involving both hemispheres. However, an intensification of the use of the left hemisphere was observed in this pattern compared to its use during young adulthood.
According to this assumption, every new learned pattern is born in the birth room in the right lobe. When her character was formed, from a constant interface with the facts of the world and a critical dialogue with other insights that exist in the brain's living space, she goes after respect to the abode of the established and stable patterns in the left hemisphere. The left hemisphere is home to generic patterns, both descriptive and prescriptive.
Determining the hemispheric specialization profile does not mean setting rigid limits regarding the contents of the template. An information template that today is considered a novelty, tomorrow it is considered a familiar template. The difference concerns the degree of familiarity between the brain and the contents of the information template at the moment of their meeting.
The shift of the mental pendulum from right to left is apparently a phenomenon that is at the core of all learning processes. However, it does not mean that as the age matures the abandonment of the right hemisphere takes place. However, the activation pattern becomes more cooperative and has more room for the left hemisphere.
Once the quota of patterns stored in the left hemisphere crosses a certain threshold, and "world knowledge", both descriptive and guiding, accumulates in a certain amount, then the owner of the brain containing these patterns is able to conduct himself in the world, even if there is a defect in the functioning of the right hemisphere. This, based on relying on the pattern pool in the left hemisphere and the increasing use of a pattern recognition approach to solving problems.
Social intelligence favors the right: cognitive abilities differ from each other in the rate of migration of the patterns associated with them to the left hemisphere, and there are also those that remain mainly the property of the right hemisphere. Such are the social skills, or what is called "social intelligence". It seems that the range of nuances and nuances in our social world are so numerous that they cannot be reduced to a finite number of core patterns. Hence, the main subject in the burden of managing our social behavior is the right hemisphere. It seems that reading the "emotional weather" of others tends to challenge the patterns we are familiar with, and similar to the general weather, it has something new every time.
It is widely accepted that damage to the right hemisphere causes more devastating results in children compared to adults, and at the other end of the age spectrum the picture is reversed. Among adults, damage to the left hemisphere entails more severe deficits than among children.
Among other things, there are findings that support this from studies in childhood and children who have undergone a hemispherectomy, an extensive and radical operation during which the hemisphere is removed in its entirety or most of it and the operated person is left with one hemisphere. This type of surgery is usually performed in an attempt to improve the condition of those who suffer from severe and uncontrollable epileptic seizures, the focus of which is in one of the hemispheres.
A retreat in brain flexibility began with age, possibly expressing a retreat from the regions of the right hemisphere, which is apparently the generator of the main brain flexibility (plasticity), towards the fortifications of the left hemisphere. With the climb up the mountain of years, the mental center of gravity moves to the left. Over time, we all tend to be more "brainy".
Constant learning delays the descent of the right hemisphere from the stage of our intellectual world. Constantly dealing with the new, hinders the natural course of the cognitive oscillation that tends with age to stay less in the right hemisphere and to prioritize brain activity in the left hemisphere.
The hemispheric activation profile as a reflection of culture
Following a series of experiments, findings emerged that pointed to the fact that students who grew up in societies of Western culture are more inclined to see the entities as isolated individuals, a tendency that can be seen as a preferred viewing "through the eyes" of the left hemisphere. On the other hand, students who grew up under the roof of Japanese culture, are more inclined to perceive the bone in the context of its belonging to other details, a tendency characterized as seeing "through the eyes" of the right hemisphere.
The tendency towards uniqueness and individualism is probably a cultural suggestion. This tendency is prevalent in the Western world. On the other hand, in the East Asian countries conformism prevailed, also apparently as a cultural carryover. In this spirit, the proverb originating in Japan "the hammer hits the nail that sticks out" can be interpreted as a recommendation to align with the environment and conformism.
In this context, the traditional assumption that ascribes analytical skills and serial and reductionist processing to the left hemisphere of the brain, and on the other hand, to the right hemisphere, parallel and holistic processing. The parallel between the interpretation of world events and the prevailing cultural interpretation raises an interesting possibility of a cultural preference of the skills of one hemisphere over the other depending on the culture to which our mind is exposed.
These perceptual differences are acquired and not genetically inherited. Support for this arises, among other things, from the fact that immigrants from one culture to another learn to "perceive things differently", according to the accepted pattern of perception in the culture to which they immigrated. These things do not allow us to conclude about the preference of one view over another. There are life situations in which one is preferable and other situations in which the other is preferable.
Manifestations of hemispheric dysfunction
Dr. Roger Sperry, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1981 for his research among 'hemispheres' (people who underwent surgery to cut the part of the brain that connects the two hemispheres, usually due to epileptic seizures resistant to drug treatment), believed in the light of his research that each hemisphere has a digit A mentalist of her own and in his own words: "The pleasures and sensations of my right half are too great for my left half to find the words to report them to you."
In his view, the mental digit of the whole hemisphere is a place where distinctly different perception processes take place, an opinion that can be defined as "mental duplication". Two citrus minds in one brain, or alternatively, two souls sharing one hostel.
Cutting the brain lobe (Corpus callosotomy), seems to cause a decrease in the total indicative strength of the impressions of perception. The phrase "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" fits this case. The overall experience is greater than summing up its processing in each hemisphere separately. The processing of the experience in the different "two minds" on the right and the left creates depth in it, and on the other hand - cutting off the connection paths between the two hemispheres inevitably narrows the depth of the experience.
why did i laugh
In an experiment performed on a person who underwent a cerebral hemispherectomy ("half-brained"), a request word written on a page: "Laugh!" was presented in the left field of vision only, which directs the visual input to the right hemisphere. In response to this the subject began to laugh. However, when asked to explain the reason for his laughter - he came up with a reason from his heart. The request to laugh was absent from the visual world image of the left hemisphere. Due to the cutting of the main communication path between the hemispheres - the cerebellum, the only recipient of the request was the right hemisphere. It seems that in the absence of information, the left hemisphere invented a plot to explain the act of laughter performed by the subject. Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga believes that the right hemisphere is the ideal witness that speaks the truth and only the truth and does not "fill holes" in our perception with false "findings". On the other hand, the left hemisphere is comfortable in alleviating the anguish involved in partial understanding, in the creation of simulated reality details, which, although they may sound reasonable and appropriate to the situation, nevertheless did not actually occur in practice.
At the left in action
In the subjects who were studied after undergoing hypnosis, it was found that when they woke up, they did not remember that they had been conditioned, so that saying a certain sentence of the hypnotist would lead them to perform an action such as retying their shoelaces. When the sentence was said and the conditioning did work and led them to tie their shoelaces, they justified it with reasons that seem reasonable, such as the long walk that awaits them to their home and their desire to make sure their shoes are ready for the task and more, using ad hoc rationalization. It seems that the left hemisphere invented a suitable "cover story", since the hypnotic conditioning was absent from its knowledge.
The stroke that the composer Maurice Rowell suffered in the summer of 1933, took away from him the gift of God of the ability to compose music. He lost the ability to conceptualize his musical ideas in the language of notes. In a comforting sense, he has not lost the ability to listen and be amazed by music as before. It can be said that his injury is a mirror image of Beethoven's deafness, who lost the ability to listen to music but his ability to compose was preserved.
A reasonable assumption is that a sleeve is damaged in the left hemisphere, which conceives our thoughts as symbols and converts the musical ideas into formal signs (notes), while the right hemisphere, where the music experience is perceived as a whole, seems to be unaffected.
- For the first part - The unity of opposites: two minds and one brain - lines in the image of the hemispheres
- for the second part - The areas of joy and sadness - emotions "take sides"
- Language and Dyslexia Part Three of Chapter 12 in the book "Behind the Scenes of the Brain Show"
- To the page for purchasing the book on the book junction website
