Re: Is your right brain active?

I think everybody who was interested enough to comment on or keep reading
this thread should investigate the book, "On Being Certain: Believing you
Are Right Even When You're Not" by Robert Burton.

http://www.amazon.com/Being-Certain-Believing-Right-Youre/dp/0312359209

He presents some very engaging and profound philosophical discussions
about selective perception, the known mechanics of  brain function and
probable role of evolution that give insights into things like this little
game....when you consciously and diligently look for the man, you don't
see him, but when you turn that processing off and let what some people
refer to as intuition take over, he pops right out at you.



Marjorie H. Pries
Lead Consultant / Utility Infielder

ThoughtWorks, Inc.
http://www.thoughtworks.com

"Don't believe everything you think."
     --seen on a bumpersticker



Tim Wright <sambo.shacklock@...>
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Re: [agile-usability] Is your right brain active?












Usefully, I've just finished reading "The Human Mind" by Robert Winston. I
think he puts it quite nicely:

"While the left and right hemispheres of our brain each have identical
structures and in normal circumstances are in constant communication with
each other, each half also houses somewhat different functions. Having
said that, the two sides of the brain are in constant communication with
each other. In most people, the left side tends to do more analytical
processing. As well as being the site of language faculties in most
people, it is also often responsible for aspects of reason and deduction.
The right side, in contrast, tends to be a much more holistic machine.

"Much has been written, often without good evidence, about the difference
between the function of the right side of the brain and the left
side....."

Essentially: there are differences between the two sides of the brain.
However, in normal circumstances, it doesn't usually matter at all.

However, rather than rely on the pop-culture meaning of right/left brain
being thinking/feeling, I'd prefer to rely on the Thinking/Feeling
spectrum of the Myers Briggs survey - it's actually based on some
half-decent research (allbeit 50 odd years old now).

Tim


On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 11:11 PM, Larry Constantine <
lconstantine@...> wrote:


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