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Re: Is your right brain active?
by Jon Kern
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Thanks Larry/(Adrian),
You are entitled to your bean raining/usual rants -- as long as you took
the test <g>.
One of the things I wish I added to the poll...
* Are you in a technical field? Y/N
* What were you doing in the 15 minutes prior to the test?
o Technical problem-solving sort of work
o Not much: relaxing, light reading, eating, etc
Because, whether it is based on "brain facts" or not, it is still fun to
hear my IT friends get tripped up on the test, yet their spouses or kids
see it immediately. And whether it is based on LEFT/RIGHT or merely the
ability for your brain to process the image faster or slower, I find it
interesting anecdotal evidence.
Personally, I find that I am more creative when doing mundane things
(shower, mowing the lawn, etc.). I guess if it is a myth of that being
dubbed "right-brained"activity ... so be it.
Could it be that the "right brain/left brain" in popular vernacular is
possibly just a term that is useful in that it serves as an alias for
the types of activity than it is for describing the true spatial
location of the actual activity? In other words, it is a handy "model"
that may not be precise as parsed, but accurate for the purpose of
describing the net effect and for /communicating/. It might not be
accurate if you are a brain scientist defending your PhD dissertation on
the subject... (Kind of like saying to a layperson that a software
application is made up of human readable source code, when we all know
it is much more complex than that. But this too is a handy /illusion/
that serves a purpose to /communicate/ to those that do not need the
accuracy.)
I did find a nice link to support your point:
http://www.rense.com/general2/rb.htm
I also found this coffee bean illusion and others here:
http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/illusion/illusions.htm
Thanks for pointing this "controversy" out... The complexities of the
brain are at once fascinating and humbling. I'm sure in another 20 years
scientists will posit yet further theories about the brain to refute
today's.
jon
jon
blog: http://technicaldebt.wetpaint.com
twitter: http://twitter.com/JonKernPA
Larry Constantine said the following on 5/7/09 7:11 AM:
> Jon,
>
> Hate to rain on the beans, but this popular and widely distributed "test"
> has been around for many years and is totally without foundation. The
> give-away that this is made up is "Doctors have concluded..." Which doctors?
> How? Not only is this not research based but to the extent it tests
> anything, it is most likely testing aspects of visual processing, not
> "right-brain/left-brain." If it were evaluating any documented aspect of
> "right-brain/left-brain" processing, it is what is more likely to be
> "left-brain" attention to detail and serial processing, much as used in
> "Find Waldo" type pastimes.
>
> I use the quotes around "right-brain/left-brain" because, although still
> pervasive in the popular culture the paradigm has been largely abandoned in
> psychology; much of what is attributed to lateralization turns out to be
> much subtler than the simplistic popular models.
>
> --Larry Constantine, IDSA, ACM Fellow
> Professor, Department of Mathematics & Engineering
> University of Madeira | Funchal, Portugal
>
>
>
>
You are entitled to your bean raining/usual rants -- as long as you took
the test <g>.
One of the things I wish I added to the poll...
* Are you in a technical field? Y/N
* What were you doing in the 15 minutes prior to the test?
o Technical problem-solving sort of work
o Not much: relaxing, light reading, eating, etc
Because, whether it is based on "brain facts" or not, it is still fun to
hear my IT friends get tripped up on the test, yet their spouses or kids
see it immediately. And whether it is based on LEFT/RIGHT or merely the
ability for your brain to process the image faster or slower, I find it
interesting anecdotal evidence.
Personally, I find that I am more creative when doing mundane things
(shower, mowing the lawn, etc.). I guess if it is a myth of that being
dubbed "right-brained"activity ... so be it.
Could it be that the "right brain/left brain" in popular vernacular is
possibly just a term that is useful in that it serves as an alias for
the types of activity than it is for describing the true spatial
location of the actual activity? In other words, it is a handy "model"
that may not be precise as parsed, but accurate for the purpose of
describing the net effect and for /communicating/. It might not be
accurate if you are a brain scientist defending your PhD dissertation on
the subject... (Kind of like saying to a layperson that a software
application is made up of human readable source code, when we all know
it is much more complex than that. But this too is a handy /illusion/
that serves a purpose to /communicate/ to those that do not need the
accuracy.)
I did find a nice link to support your point:
http://www.rense.com/general2/rb.htm
I also found this coffee bean illusion and others here:
http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/illusion/illusions.htm
Thanks for pointing this "controversy" out... The complexities of the
brain are at once fascinating and humbling. I'm sure in another 20 years
scientists will posit yet further theories about the brain to refute
today's.
jon
jon
blog: http://technicaldebt.wetpaint.com
twitter: http://twitter.com/JonKernPA
Larry Constantine said the following on 5/7/09 7:11 AM:
> Jon,
>
> Hate to rain on the beans, but this popular and widely distributed "test"
> has been around for many years and is totally without foundation. The
> give-away that this is made up is "Doctors have concluded..." Which doctors?
> How? Not only is this not research based but to the extent it tests
> anything, it is most likely testing aspects of visual processing, not
> "right-brain/left-brain." If it were evaluating any documented aspect of
> "right-brain/left-brain" processing, it is what is more likely to be
> "left-brain" attention to detail and serial processing, much as used in
> "Find Waldo" type pastimes.
>
> I use the quotes around "right-brain/left-brain" because, although still
> pervasive in the popular culture the paradigm has been largely abandoned in
> psychology; much of what is attributed to lateralization turns out to be
> much subtler than the simplistic popular models.
>
> --Larry Constantine, IDSA, ACM Fellow
> Professor, Department of Mathematics & Engineering
> University of Madeira | Funchal, Portugal
>
>
>
>
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