The right hemisphere plays a large role in deductive reasoning

The right hemisphere appears to be crucially involved in the process of deductive reasoning, a process which is independent not only of left hemisphere language areas, but also of right hemisphere visuospatial areas: for example, even in the absence of any correlated visual input (e.g. where problems are presented acoustically via headphones), different types of reasoning problems evoke activity in the right superior parietal cortex, and bilaterally in the precuneus.

And in fact deductive logic is also associated with the right ventromedial prefrontal cortex, an area known to be devoted to emotion and feeling. Seeing what follows from a social, emotional understanding of the situation in which one finds oneself in the real world is at least as important, then, as seeing what follows from an abstract proposition.

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References

• Mcgilchrist, Iain. (2010). The Master and His Emissary Chapter 2 What Do the Hemispheres Do (p. 132). London, UK: Yale University Press.

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Type:🔴 Tags: Biology / Neuroscience / Neuropsychology Status:☀️