The right hemisphere can understand unclear and fleeting images, while the left requires clarity and stillness
The left hemisphere tends to be stubbornly certain, whereas the right acknowledges ambiguity and is always uncertain, so as we may expect, blurred or indistinct images are not a problem for the right hemisphere, but are for the left, even where the nature of the task would suggest that it should be more problematic for the right hemisphere. One of the most consistent early findings in hemisphere specialization was that whenever an image is either only fleetingly presented, or presented in a degraded form, so that only partial information is available, a right hemisphere superiority emergesâeven when the material is verbal. In some subtle experimental work, Justine Sergent was able to demonstrate this and its converse, namely that when images are presented for longer than usual, thus increasing their certainty and familiarity, a left hemisphere superiority emerges, even when it comes to face recognition.
She makes the interesting observation that letters of the alphabet ârepresent a finite set of stimuli that are sharply focused, familiar and overlearnedâ, whereas visual images ârepresent a potentially infinite set of shapes of large visual angle size, with different levels of structure of unequal importance and salience that are most often unfamiliar to subjectsâ. In doing so she neatly reveals a common thread which unites, on the one hand, the left hemisphereâs affinity for what it itself has made (here language), well-worn familiarity , certainty and finitude, and, on the other, the right hemisphereâs affinity for all that is âotherâ, new, unknown, uncertain and unbounded: Novelty is handled by the right hemisphere, and is transferred to the left hemisphere as it becomes familiar.
Again what have to be referred to, left hemisphere fashion, as separate âfunctionsâ (or areas of concern), should also be seen, right hemisphere fashion, as aspects of one and the same entity that are only artificially separated in the process of description. The âfunctionsâ are not arbitrarily housed together in this or that hemisphere: they form, in the case of either hemisphere, aspects of two whole ways of being in the world.
References
- Mcgilchrist, Iain. (2010). The Master and His Emissary Chapter 2 What Do the Hemispheres Do (p. 167). London, UK: Yale University Press.
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Type:đ´ Tags: Biology / Neuroscience / Neuropsychology Status:âď¸