Right hemispheric people features and professions. creative hemisphere of the brain
Technology of "two-hemispheric" learning
as one of the methods for improving the quality of knowledge in the context of the transition to the second generation of the Federal State Educational Standards
Introduction
The changes taking place in Russia require an active search for social landmarks that reflect both the continuity historical development, and the need to determine a goal that can combine state, public and personal needs and interests, the achievements of world civilization and the originality of national culture.
Setting development goals domestic education in the category of national priorities is the best suited to this task. The education system is a sphere of social life in which, to one degree or another, the interests of the absolute majority of the country's population are represented. General education is the basis of the system, includes many millions of students, employees of the education system, affects the interests of their families, employers, and various public organizations.
The experience of creating national education standards shows that standards can effectively fulfill their mission only if their development and adoption procedures are based on the identification and coordination of individual, public and state needs in general education. Individual, social and state needs and interests can be classified as follows.
Individual needs of the individual (family) in the field general education integrate the potential of personal, social and professional success of students.
Personal success is a full and varied personal formation and development, taking into account individual inclinations, interests, motives and abilities.
Social success is an organic entry into the social environment and participation in the life of society.
Professional success is the development of universal labor and practical skills, readiness to choose a profession.
The main functions of the standard include the function of improving the quality of education. It is the implementation of this function that contributes to the methodology of "two-hemispheric" teaching of students.
Leading types of perception of information in humans.
All people, adults and children, are conditionally divided into two large groups. One group includes people with a leading right hemisphere type of perception, and the other group includes people with a leading left hemisphere type of perception.
The left hemispheric leading type of perception contributes to the easy assimilation of literate writing. Competent writing for such people is formed without much effort on their part - it is easily “given” to them. Such children may not learn the rules, but write correctly. But they write worse essays. Left-brained children will have to make extra efforts in order to learn how to write good essays.
The right hemispheric leading type of perception, on the contrary, does not contribute to the easy development of literate writing. And even if such a child knows the rules perfectly, he often cannot apply them. But if such people read enough, they can write good essays without much effort.
This happens because right hemispheric type perception is "responsible" for ease of communication, for expanded communicative and expressive speech, for its figurativeness. But the left hemispheric type of perception is “responsible” for competent writing, for the logical construction of speech, for working with sign systems.
Society overestimates the role of the left hemisphere and logical thinking in the development of the child's mental activity. School teaching methods train and develop mainly the left hemisphere, ignoring at least half of the child's capabilities.
It is known that the right hemisphere is associated with the development of creative thinking and intuition. The main type of thinking of a younger student is visual-figurative, closely related to the emotional sphere. This suggests the participation of the right hemisphere in learning.
right hemisphere characteristic of a holistic, undifferentiated perception.Left hemispheric on the contrary, they divide the whole into its component parts. When students learn the rules for spelling words, they divide the sentence into words, words into parts (root, prefix, etc.). To act according to the rule, it is necessary to stop the writing process, remember the rule, select, for example, the root from an unwritten word, compare it with the root given in the rule. Left-brained children cope with this, so their literacy improves after learning the rules.
right hemispheric , without thinking about the rules, they write without errors. But as soon as they stop, think, and a mistake is inevitable. This group of children must not divide the word into parts, violate its integral image, the unity of semantic, auditory and motor characteristics. The integrity of perception is violated, the automatism of writing is destroyed, innate literacy is destroyed. They cannot be stopped during the letter and asked to remember the rule. Such children, having written a text without errors, often cannot cope with the task of parsing a sentence or word in parts. When checking, they read the text quickly, they do not notice errors and typos. For them, the main thing is understanding the meaning of what they read, so they do not like self-examinations.
Let us quote the leading experts in the field of neuropedagogy.
Professor Traugott: "We need to warn the school against left-brain learning. This brings up people who are not capable of real action in a real situation."
Professor Khrizman: "Right hemispheres are disappearing - generators of ideas. The question is serious: we need to save the nation."
Professor Kolesov: "True thinking is figurative, complex, when it is important not only to designate the concept, but also to understand it in a complex way."
Features of the main cognitive processes
in children with dominance of the left and right hemispheres of the brain
"Left brained" children"Right Hemispheric" Children
thinking
Rather rational
Abstract, logical, formal, analytical (abstract knowledge)
Programmable
Use of induction (primacy of the quotient) Operating with numbers (including the counting system), mathematical formulas and other symbolic symbols
Rather emotional
Visual-figurative, synthetic thinking (sensory cognition); reliance on associations, intuition, anticipation, creativity
Spontaneous
The use of deduction (the primacy of the general Attraction of sensations, conjectures, premonitions, ideas, visual representations of life
perception
Discrete (in parts)
Analytical and rational
Abstract, invariant
Better perceived verbal stimuli, easily distinguishable, familiar
Good perception of speech (oral and written) of its semantic aspects; distinguishing the main
Poor perception of messages in the background of noise
Good perception of high sounds
Perception is holistic
Emotional perception
Perception concrete
Better perceived non-verbal stimuli are difficult to distinguish, unfamiliar
Figurative information, spatial relationships, music (without its analysis), noises are perceived holistically
Good perception of messages against the background of noise
Good perception of low sounds
memory
Good auditory memory
Poor memory for images
Good memory for numbers, formulas, words
Dominance of the transcoding function
Dominance of the recoding function (semantic memorization)
Good arbitrary memory
Good memorization of the sequence of events and their probabilistic properties
Good figurative memory
Poor auditory memory
Good visual, figurative, emotional memory, memory for sounds, smells, etc.
The dominance of the imprinting function
Good involuntary memory
general characteristics intellect
The verbal, logical component is well developed; commitment to theory
The non-verbal, intuitive component is well developed; commitment to practice
Features of the "left hemisphere" and "right hemisphere" learning strategies
(according to V.V. Golenkov and E.B. Filippova)
With the "left hemispheric" strategy, the emphasis is on the auditory-speech memory of students, i.e. teaching material is mostly given verbally. The rules, the structure of the studied phenomena are reflected in a visual form, i.e. symbolic generalizations (schemes) are, as it were, a verbal form of imprinting.
teacher's speechfor "left brain" children should be logical, "like proof of theorems", without excessive emotionality, facial expressions and pantomime. Extra gestures are undesirable, except for regulatory ones. The pace of speech and pauses in any style of teaching should correspond to the speed of translation of the external speech of the teacher into the internal speech of the students. Pauses and loudness are used to more clearly highlight semantic parts in speech.
" Right Brain Learning Strategy is also characterized by features corresponding to the activities and mental alignment of "right-brained" children.
The educational process is based on the figurative thinking of students. The images used in the explanation should not be divided into parts, but reflect the essence of the phenomenon being studied and act as the main means of conveying the material to students. In this case, visual images will be the main ones, in certain cases it is necessary to involve auditory, kinesthetic (motor), tactile, olfactory, and emotional ones, activating the corresponding types of memory.
It is advisable to use visual material, diagrams, saturate speech with comparisons and metaphors. Especially effective are dynamic visualization (operating models), auditory (various noises), etc. Verbal information must be reinforced with figurative information, preferably unfolding in time, include emotions, actions (for example, draw something in the air), pay special attention to the informational significance of the elements of explanation (brief and specific)
With the help of expressive means of speech - intonation, volume, pauses - the teacher can control the attention of students and establish trusting communication with them, which is necessary for cooperation in the lesson. Teaching "right hemispheric" students should rely to the maximum extent on their abilities, interest in art, literature and philosophical problems. When evaluating knowledge, it is important to take into account the increased emotionality of these children and remember that "bad" grades do not become an incentive for them to learn.
Types of students according to M. Grinder.
p/nl/n
Likes information in writing.
Likes information in the form of graphs, maps, demonstrations.
Likes to check work.
Doesn't like checking work
Repeats factual information
Likes self-selection. Uses intuition
Analyzes from part to whole.
Analyzes from the whole to the part.
Prefers to read first, then the movie.
Likes to watch a movie before reading a book
Sees symbols (words, letters).
Sees specific objects.
From the point of view of neuropedagogy, the entire educational process appears as a sequential chain:
ensuring the activity of the student, taking into account the above features (creating conditions for the successful solution of the problem);
comparison of the results obtained with the expected ones (a conscious attitude to the result of one's educational work);
organization of a situation of success, taking into account the psychophysiological characteristics of students in stages (motivational stage - operational - productive).
According to this structure, at each stage we must take into account the characteristics of “right-brained” and “left-brained” children in the following way:
Organization of a success situation.
The teacher encourages students to achieve success. The situation of success associated with the motivational sphere at this stage is determined mainly by the psychological aspects of the child's individuality.
For right brain students it is necessary to emphasize the social significance of a particular type of activity, since they have a highly expressed need for self-realization. The motives that encourage the study of school subjects are associated with the formation of personality, with the desire for self-knowledge, with the desire to understand the relationships between people, to realize one's position in the world. They are characterized by an orientation towards appreciation and praise. Of great interest to right-brained schoolchildren is the aesthetic side of objects.
To form motivation for learning activitiesin left-brained students focus on educational motives. They are attracted by the process of assimilation of knowledge. They are characterized by a high need for constant mental activity. The social motive is the possibility of continuing education. Classes in school sciences are considered as a means for the development of thinking. The need for self-improvement of the mind and volitional qualities is expressed.
Features of sensory perception
Cognitive activity that occurs in the left hemisphere triggers eye movements to the right side (and vice versa). Therefore, it can be assumed that those who avert their eyes to the left in the process of thinking are right hemisphere, and those who look to the right are left hemisphere. Therefore, for right hemisphere students, the most significant is the left hemisphere, and for left hemisphere students, the right hemisphere is the most significant.
Often students begin to look away or "roll their eyes at the ceiling" while communicating with the teacher. This reaction is not accidental. Eyes to the side - no interest in the teacher and his information. The teacher, trying to return the attention of the student, accelerates the pace and volume of speech. The student at this moment processes the information that he did not have time to process. At the moment, he does not perceive the speech of the teacher. Moreover, the acceleration of speech by the teacher is perceived by the student as a kind of aggression towards him. There is irritation and a defensive reaction. If the student's eyes drift away during the conversation, pause. Give him the opportunity to absorb the information received.
For the most effective perception of information from the blackboardfor right hemispheric the combination of colors should be like this: a light board and dark chalk. The students should be seated in a semicircle. Outside of these conditions, the loss of information can be up to 30%.
For left brain students the most significant is the right hemisphere; combination of colors on the board: dark background and light chalk; classic landing behind the desks.
right hemispheric
Left hemispheric
Spatial organization (part of the board)
left
right
Color organization (blackboard and chalk color)
Light board and dark chalk
Dark board and white chalk
Conditions for successful activity
Images, context, connection of information with reality, with practice, creative tasks, experiments, background music, speech rhythm
Technology, details, linear style of presentation. repeated repetition educational material silence in class
Formation of motivation
Striving for independence, depth of knowledge, high demand for mental activity, education
Operational stage.
Children with right hemisphere dominance do not control the correctness of their speech. Activities that require constant self-control are performed poorly by them. In oral speech, there may be problems in grammar and word selection. Semantic omissions are possible, especially if the right hemisphere student is also impulsive.
Children with left hemisphere dominance control their speech. But if they are asked to summarize, they will meet with certain difficulties. Left-brained students need help developing verbal and verbal fluency. writing. However, their accuracy in the use of words and the application of rules is usually higher than that of right-brained classmates. However, left-brained students tend to be slower in writing.
At the operational stage, some children have a critical period: on the one hand, it is necessary to do the work, and on the other hand, there are not enough conditions for the implementation of the task. It is at this stage that the situation organized by the teacher is invaluable, which helps the child to get involved in the work, stimulates his activity. Specific circumstances dictate the use of certain methods.
The teacher, when choosing methods and techniques in the learning process, must take into account the peculiarities of the mental processes of students with different type functional asymmetry of the hemispheres.
right hemispheric
Left hemispheric
Perception of the material
holistic, visual, speech intonation
discrete (in parts), the meaning of speech
Recycling
fast, instant
slow, consistent
Intelligence
non-verbal, intuitive
verbal, logical
Activity
practical
theoretical
Emotions
extraversion, fear, anger, sadness, rage
introversion, joy, feeling of enjoyment
Memory
involuntary, visual
arbitrary, symbolic
Thinking
visual-figurative, spontaneous, emotional, intuitive, three-dimensional
abstract-logical, formal, rational, programmable, two-dimensional
Productive stage
This stage of the teacher's activity is diagnostic, it determines the forecasts for the future. The student also corrects his activity with the help of the teacher: his conscious attitude to the results should become an incentive for the upcoming activity.
The teacher is faced with the task of organizing the work in such a way as to turn the result of the student's previous activity into an emotional stimulus, into a conscious motive for completing the next task.
The teacher has an attitude to find mistakes, the student - to make them as few as possible. This leads to the formation of the performing style in the child and didactics in the teacher. This situation is fraught with many negative consequences.
The performing style of thinking is formed in children already in kindergarten. Art school teachers note that one year in kindergarten is enough to standardize a child's thinking. No wonder there is a law: in children's creative works, the teacher is forbidden to correct even the most egregious mistakes. It has been noticed that children of authoritarian teachers and parents are more conflicted, more often give negative assessments to others.
Nevertheless, the result academic work usually comes down to evaluation. The teacher evaluates literacy, accuracy, correctness, etc. The student, on the other hand, hopes that they will appreciate not only the result, but also his efforts.
When choosing methods for testing students' knowledge it is necessary to take into account the interhemispheric asymmetry of the brain.
For left brain students the most preferable will be: problem solving, written surveys with an unlimited deadline, questions of a "closed" type. Written problem solving allows the left hemisphere to show their ability to analyze, and for questions of a "closed" type, they will successfully select an answer from the proposed options.
For right brain students suitable methods of oral survey, tasks with "open" questions, with a fixed deadline. Questions of the "open" type give them the opportunity to show creativity, to demonstrate their own detailed answer.
right hemispheric
Left hemispheric
self control
do not control the correctness of speech, semantic omissions, free conversion
high self-control of speech, presentation of material
Typical errors
stressed vowels, dictionary words, letter omissions, misspellings, proper names are written with a lowercase letter
unstressed vowels, omission of a soft sign, writing extra letters, replacing one consonant with another, case endings
Verification Methods
oral survey, limited time for completing the task, open-ended questions (own detailed answer)
written survey, unlimited survey period, closed-type questions (choose a ready-made answer)
For a lesson to be productive and teaching to be effective, the teacher must usetechniques for teaching right hemisphere children.
1. Fantasizing - an essay with various tasks.
2. Drawing up riddles, jokes, jokes, tongue twisters, essays.
3. Compilation of fairy tales.
4. Acceptance of color change. (We stepped into the picture. What did you see, hear, feel? What colors would you paint the picture with? What can be added, removed? Why?)
5. The method of introducing a new hero. (Come up with a hero who would help Alyonushka, Ivanushka, etc.).
6. Reception "before the fairy tale". Imagine what happened before the fairy tale. (Describe the place where two Frosts lived, etc.).
7. Method of description. Offer to describe the door where Cinderella, Rybka, Baba Yaga, etc. lived.
8. Method of change in the subsystem of the hero of a fairy tale. Introduce another instead of one hero of a fairy tale. How would the plot change?
9. MCH. Describe the sensations of an ice girl. When she felt good, bad, etc.
10. Reception of revival. Invite children to describe nature in the face of a living being or poems using key words.
11. Word drawing. Come up with your own picture, your own musical instrument, etc.
12. Method of miraculous transformations. (Describe good deeds that could help to take shape ...).
13. Reception life in the plane (amorphous state). Offer to imagine yourself in the place of the hero that is in the material being studied (a goat, a bear, an old man, a goldfish).
14. System lift. (Water cycle in nature).
15. Reception of synthesis. Conclusions after observations. (The name of the fairy tale - what could it be - why?)
16. Trial and error method. (Help yourself, keep yourself busy, find what is dear to you, to your liking).
17. Problematic issue. How can you travel without leaving your home? etc.
18. Method of addition. The teacher starts and the children finish.
19. Method of sound sensation. What sounds do rain, light, music of spring, winter, etc. make?
20. Association method. What does (a), (e) look like? This is a tree, a snowdrift, etc. (Working methods are taken from the PTV program).
The listed activities make it easier to teach children with one learning style and make it difficult to teach children with the opposite learning style or give the teacher a correct idea of their knowledge and abilities, so you need to apply methods of a differentiated approach to teaching.
Let us give an example of tasks in the study of literature.
right hemisphericLeft hemispheric
Composition
Story analysis
Making words and sentences out of parts
Parsing words and sentences by composition
Reading-retelling
Listening to texts
Role Reading
Teaching others to read
Spelling tasks
Tasks for finding errors
Finding a relationship
Application of the learned rule
Finding passages in the text
Text matching
Exercises that develop attention; logical, analytical thinking; learn to compare, highlight the main thing; set up for further specific activities, that is,develop the left hemisphere of the brain . These are such exercises as: “Find a logical error”, “Follow logical reasoning”, “Expand your view of the world”; fighting games: orthoepic, spelling, morphological, etc.; G. Eysenck's tests, the “Correction test” test, tasks like “Choose the fourth extra”, “Make an algorithm” and others.
Activate figurative memory, develop creative imagination, the ability to see internal images, emotionally present the material, that isaffect the right hemisphere of the brain allow educational games: “Storyteller Competition”, “Tree of Wisdom”, “Magic Pencil”, “Academic Council”. They help to master abstractions, generalizations, bring perception, attention, memory into “combat” readiness, make it possible to quickly and optimally understand the educational material. Dictionary work according to the method of Cicero, “Matryoshka”, use of the “Spelling Strategy” (from NLP); image visualization exercises that develop the ability to see internal images, such as “Make a portrait of a phrase”, “Compose a grammatical fairy tale”, role-playing, also contribute to this.
Right hemispheric education.
Psychologists point out that until the age of 10, the right hemisphere, which is responsible for holistic perception, is predominantly activated in students, which contributes to the development of creativity, shifting the focus to non-verbal learning.
Acceptance of Instant Presentation Cards. Students on cards illustrate concrete and abstract concepts, which stimulates a non-trivial view of abstract concepts, activates figurative thinking.
Reception "Interpretation". While listening to a musical fragment, students compare them with a certain concept written on the board and find a match. It is advisable to use this technique before studying the topic, because. it allows you to extract and activate the information already available to the child about the object or phenomenon that is to be studied, so that later the perception of the topic is more effective.
Reception "Dramatization". This technique has long been used in the process of teaching the humanities. Holistic learning involves its application in the study of natural sciences. Dramatization helps to remember the features of an object or natural phenomenon, to understand the dynamics of a process or a scientific concept. The educational game "I was born a gardener" is basically built on the technique of dramatization. Each student chooses a role for himself (for example, a flower), then he looks for the necessary information in additional literature, and uses them in the lesson. The teacher plays the role of a gardener who turns to this or that flower, talks to him, learns about the features of his life.
Dramatization can be writing, inviting students to write essays about their mental reincarnations: “I am a snowflake”, “I am a drop of water”, “I am a butterfly”, etc.
Reception "Visualization". This is controlled fantasizing, imaginary journeys under the guidance of a teacher: a journey inside your body, into the bowels of the Earth or the Sun, inside a living cell, etc. visualization can play the role of a problem situation or the role of an emotional-figurative shell put on a logically rational frame of scientific facts, information connecting them into a coherent picture. For the implementation of visualization, a calm, friendly atmosphere in the lesson, dim light, and calm music are necessary. The teacher can use text describing phenomena from popular science literature. While reading this text, students imagine the phenomenon and answer the questions.
One of the advantages of such visualizations over visual methods is that it is not a passive assimilation of ready-made information that is carried out, but an active work of thought and imagination takes place, enriching the child’s existing experience, new images are created, and developmental activities are organized.
Left brain training.
The left hemisphere processes information logically, sequentially. It is necessary to use a logical way of reasoning - this is a skill that gradually develops from childhood. Children learn to make judgments, draw conclusions, using concrete examples first, and then moving on to abstract thinking.
Reception "Classification". The task helps students understand that objects can be classified according to several characteristics (color, shape, size, etc.).
Reception "Problem Solving". Problem-based learning is closely related to left-brain learning, since problem solving involves a logical analysis of the information available to students regarding a given problem, as well as an analysis of the information received. It is possible to make such learning attractive for students only if it is motivated and will have personal significance for the student. Often students do research to solve a problem. Conducting experiments and experiments, analyzing the information obtained, logically reasoning, students find a solution to the problem.
Combination of different types of training .
Types of learning - physical-sensory, right hemisphere, left hemisphere, emotional, etc. - these are theoretical, artificial categories. It is necessary to use combinations of types of training. For this, a variety of interesting teaching methods are used: brainstorming, grid, synectics, lateral thinking, etc.
Reception "Brain Attack". It means the free expression of ideas on a particular issue. This is a process, the purpose of which is to develop a choice of possibilities, alternatives. During brainstorming, students should refrain from criticizing and evaluating any proposal. Brainstorming is one problem solving technique that students can use in the future.
Reception "Grid". This form of brainstorming is designed to find connections between individual positions. The core of the network is the establishment of connections. When building a network, the problem is written in the center of a sheet of paper and branches are drawn in all directions, where the network of problems originating from the original one is recorded.
Reception "Synectics". This is the process of using metaphors and analogies in reasoning to make the unfamiliar familiar. Using this technique, students develop the ability to create their own connecting metaphors and analogies.
Reception "Lateral thinking". Such thinking is associated with insight, creativity, humor. It is based on the restructuring of information, a departure from the rigid patterns established by practice. This technique helps students create new ideas, identify and solve problems, and explore scientific concepts. Such thinking allows you to learn to think flexibly, to destroy old patterns.
Emotional learning.
The holistic approach considers the development of students' emotions as important as the ability to solve problems, think logically, and carefully observe. The emotional component of learning can be included in each lesson by asking one or another emotional question.
Reception "Dilemma". This is a situation that requires a choice of alternatives. The ability to sort through options, to see and choose an alternative is necessary for the formation of a creative personality. Value sheets are provided to help students deal with the dilemma. They contain a description of the dilemma and questions for students. Students get acquainted with the list of values, discuss it, answer questions.
Reception "Taking positions". There are problems in life and in science that can cause deep feelings. But students cannot analyze and express their position. In this technique, students mark extreme positions on the topic under discussion, and give them the opportunity to explain these positions.
Conclusion.
Creating motivation for learning is also an effective factor for conducting a quality lesson. The so-called “metaphor” helps to bring the child into a problematic state, when he is interested in solving the task, a kind of parable, an instructive story, even an anecdote, an aphorism - which we do not decipher, do not explain the meaning. But, having told it at the beginning of the lesson, we influence both hemispheres of the brain, transferring the student from the problematic state to the desired one. Let us give an example of one of the stories of N. Peseshkian:
Not a big difference.
One eastern ruler had a dream that all his teeth fell out one by one. In great agitation, he summoned an interpreter of dreams to him. He listened to him anxiously and said: “Lord, I must tell you the sad news: you will lose all your loved ones one by one!” These words aroused the wrath of the sovereign. He ordered that the unfortunate man be thrown into prison and another interpreter be called. He, having listened to the dream, said: “I am happy to tell you good news! You will live a long life and outlive all your loved ones!” The sovereign generously rewarded the soothsayer. The courtiers were surprised: “After all, you told him the same thing as your predecessor!” "It all depends on how you say what is said."
The division of consciousness ("subtle body") into yin and yang at the level of thinking is left hemisphere and right hemisphere thinking.
At the physical level, the cortex of our brain consists of two hemispheres, interconnected by a bundle of nerve fibers - the corpus callosum. The left hemisphere is responsible for the right half of the body, while the right hemisphere is responsible for the left.
In accordance with this, many esotericists accept that the right side of our body (regardless of gender) is associated with our “male energy”, and the left half with “female energy”.
Left brain thinking:
The ability for speech, analysis, detailing, abstraction is provided by the left hemisphere of the brain. It works sequentially, building chains, algorithms, operating with a fact, a detail, a symbol, a sign, and is responsible for the abstract-logical component in thinking. In our speech, the left hemisphere provides theoretical thinking, grammatical formulation of the statement and characterization of the properties of objects.
Right Brain Thinking:
The right hemisphere is able to perceive information as a whole, work simultaneously through many channels and, in the absence of information, restore the whole in its parts. It is customary to correlate creativity, intuition, ethics, and the ability to adapt with the work of the right hemisphere. The right hemisphere provides the perception of reality in its entirety of diversity and complexity, in general, with all its constituent elements. In our speech, the right forms the integrity of the semantic content, provides empirical and figurative (metaphorical) thinking, creates associations based on visual-sensory representations of the subject.
According to the concept of V. S. Rotenberg, “out of the entire abundance of real and potential connections, the left hemisphere selects a few internally consistent, not mutually exclusive, and on the basis of these few connections (ideally, the desire for only one, but very strong) creates a uniquely understood context. This context is based on the establishment of unambiguous causal relationships between objects and phenomena. Thanks to an unambiguous context, a complete mutual understanding is achieved between people in the course of their activities. Unambiguity also provides a logical analysis of objects and phenomena, the sequence of transition from one level of consideration to another. At the same time, all other connections that can complicate and confuse the picture, make it less definite and internally contradictory - all these connections are mercilessly cut off. Such a picture of the world neatly trimmed to look like a typewriter of logical thinking is no longer a picture in the full sense of the word, but a model that is easy to use. All school education in the conditions of Western civilization is aimed at the speedy formation in a person of an unambiguous context of left-brain thinking.
The right hemisphere is busy with the exact opposite task. It "captures" reality in all its richness, inconsistency and ambiguity of connections and forms a multi-valued context. An excellent example of such a context is the dreams of people with whole brains. …this example… is addressed to the inner experience of each person. We all probably know the feeling of helplessness when, waking up after a vivid and personally significant dream, we try to retell it in order to convey our feelings from it. And we are surprised to find that, although we clearly remember it in all details, something important escapes when retelling, not only from the listeners, but also from ourselves. What we are able to express in words is only a pale shadow, a skeleton of what we actually saw. And the point is not that we lack words, but that we fail to convey in words that many-valued context that is formed by the abundance of intersecting connections between its individual images. Speech, in any case, speech is not poetic, is fundamentally not intended to convey and express such a context, since it is built according to the laws of left-brain thinking.
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Have you ever heard that all people are two categories - "artists" and "thinkers". What does it mean? And the fact that some people have the best developed right hemisphere of the brain, which provides figurative thinking, while others have the left hemisphere, which is responsible for logical thinking. Of course, this theory has been subjected to scientific criticism many times, but at the same time, the notion that the creative and logical beginning of a person directly depends on the predominance of the activity of the right or left hemispheres has firmly entrenched in the minds of modern man. Some psychologists and neurophysiologists believe that which hemisphere works better is directly reflected in a person's abilities, his character. Some scientists argue that a developed right-brain thinking has a much greater value. Why? You will find the answer in our material.
About the work of the two hemispheres
The researcher of the processes of intelligence and creativity, Paul Torrance, was among the first to pay attention to the peculiarities of the work of the hemispheres of the human brain. The scientist conducted an experiment during which 4 types of thinking were established:
- left hemispheric thinking - that which is built on logic and analysis
- right hemispheric thinking - where the thought process is driven by emotions and images
- mixed thinking - where both the right and left hemispheres are equally active, each of which turns on at the right time
- integrated thinking - when right hemisphere and left hemisphere thinking work simultaneously.
Torrance emphasized that among the selected types of thinking there are no good and bad: each has its own advantages and disadvantages. However, scientists have recently increasingly attached importance to the development of right-brain thinking.
How do you know which hemisphere is dominant?
You can find out which hemisphere dominates in you with the help of special tests. And the easiest way to find out is to listen to yourself. If you rely on intuition when making decisions, trust your feelings and sensations, if you are not particularly striving for human resource management, if music can cause you feelings, and a film can cause strong emotions, then your activity of the right hemisphere predominates. If you like being a leader and organizer, it’s not difficult for you to pronounce, you tend to analyze any problem, decomposing it into its components - you have a left-brain type of thinking.
Characteristics of right brain thinking
A person who is dominated by right-brain thinking often uses an intuitive approach to solving life problems and professional tasks. Such a person connects logic in situations of extreme necessity. For a right-brained person, high ideals and moral guidelines are valuable, he is inclined to philosophize. The "artist" does not like being controlled by someone: he prefers to act on his own initiative. For a right-brained person, relationships with others are important. Such a person is able to give birth to unique ideas, to create something new, beautiful.
It must be said that the classical education system is built in such a way as to develop predominantly left-brain thinking, almost completely ignoring the development of right-brain skills. This is expressed in the fact that children and students are taught only to memorize and reproduce information within the framework of the curriculum, maximum - to think logically, and pay very little attention to the development of figurative thinking, fantasy, intuition, creativity. Unfortunately, right-brained, creative thinking is not cultivated in traditional schools and, as a result, students become ordinary "standard" adults. This approach significantly limits the process of personality development, makes it one-sided.
Why develop right-brain thinking?
Many scientists have emphasized the special value of right-brain thinking. One of the founders of scientific pedagogy, the German researcher Johann Friedrich Herbart noted that a bad teacher presents the truth, while a good one teaches to find it. Neuroeducator Natalia Traugott said that "the educational system must be warned against left-brain learning, as this educates people who will not be able to perform real actions in real situations." Professor T.P. Khrizman lamented that “right-brained people, generators of ideas, are disappearing. The question is serious: we must save the nation.
"An experiment in the field of pedagogy and psychology conducted by American, Swiss and Austrian scientists showed that schoolchildren began to excel significantly in all disciplines when the regular school curriculum was reduced by increasing the hours of music lessons."
Recently, the issue of intensive development of right hemispheric thinking has been actualized. For example, the ability to think figuratively and comprehensively, to quickly generate ideas are the most important skills of a modern top manager, who often works in conditions of chaos and stress. The largest companies - banks, retailers, manufacturers - do not neglect the development of intuitive-sensory thinking of their employees, including management. Therefore, right brain thinking must be developed in order to succeed and improve the quality of life.
Exercises to activate the right hemisphere
"Recommendation. Intuition, inner figurative vision, an integrated approach - all these manifestations of right-brain thinking can be developed. You can do it on your own (with the help of well-known techniques, Michael Mikalko, Julia Cameron, Merili Zdenek and others), or you can do intensive creativity training in a group at a special training.
Start training your right hemisphere with simple exercises that are performed in pairs.
- Exercise "Images". Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Concentrate on your breathing: breathe deeply, calming down more and more with each breath and focusing on your own sensations. Inhale and exhale easily, freely. Feel that you are warm, cozy, comfortable and you breathe clean, fresh and cool air. So you calm down and tune in to a new activity. Now your partner will slowly read out the words that you need to feel, feel as realistic as possible. Focus on the content of the words. Speak the words to yourself and imagine what you hear in your imagination.
at first visual images: banana, river, forest, flower, bee, red, play, affectionate, craft, weave.
bodily images: stroking fur, melting snowflake, warm steam, walking on a soft carpet, hot water, sharp needle, fish scales, soft fluff.
And in the end - olfactory and tactile images: the aroma of fresh roses, the smell of hay, the smell of pine needles, the taste of a freshly cut orange, a slice of chocolate, canapes with large red caviar.
- Exercise "Proverbs". Your exercise partner thinks of some well-known proverb or saying and tries to explain silently, non-verbally (only with the help of facial expressions and gestures) what he thought of. You guess. Then, switch roles.
Good luck in developing right-brain thinking! What is your opinion: how is right-brained, intuitive-figurative thinking related to leadership?
Municipal budgetary educational institution
Lyceum No. 180
Nizhny Novgorod
Educational project in biology
"Right Brain Thinking"
Fulfilled
Maya Serova; 10 A
Supervisor:
Panteleeva Olga Yurievna
biology teacher of the highest category
Nizhny Novgorod 2012
Introduction
Unfortunately, the capabilities of the human brain are poorly understood today. In many issues related to the activity of the higher nervous system, scientists and researchers are forced to take into account numerous "blank spots". Even with a modern scientific and technical base, it is difficult to conduct research in this area. It is necessary to systematize the data of numerous observations of human behavior over many years. Nevertheless, it has been scientifically established that the functions of the cerebral hemispheres in human mental activity are very different: the main area of specialization of the right hemisphere is intuition; The left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for language abilities, controls speech and memory. According to research, the left hemisphere of the brain is more developed in most people. But the appearance of outstanding talents and geniuses of mankind is associated by part of the scientific community with the active connection of the right hemisphere. This work is devoted to the study of the available data on the asymmetry of the cerebral hemispheres and how this asymmetry manifests itself in everyday human life.
The relevance of the topic lies in the fact that both human civilization as such and scientific and technological progress require extraordinary creative thinking, the ability to quickly respond to the rapidly changing realities of time, i.e. they need people capable of fantasy, creative flight, unusual thinking. According to one version of scientists, the further development of a person and the development of all the possibilities of the brain and the body in general is associated with the harmonization of the degree of development of the hemispheres. If both hemispheres of the brain are equally involved in the process of life, we will discover many new possibilities for ourselves, if not “superpowers”. So far, this is a theory, but the main postulates are already confirmed by practice. And even earlier, mankind has thought more than once about what a “comprehensively developed personality” is and what its formation should be like.
I was interested in this topic because I study at a school with an in-depth study of physics and mathematics, therefore, in the process of studying I develop the left hemisphere of the brain, while there are no special subjects and disciplines for the development of the right hemisphere. Am I depriving myself, in this way, of some skills that will help me improve? What should I do to solve this problem, and how will it affect my condition, my abilities, my activities? These questions concern me and helped to formulate the purpose of this project.
The aim of the work is to study the possibilities of stimulating the activity of the cerebral hemispheres for their uniform and harmonious development.
Work tasks:
to study how the functional asymmetry of the cerebral hemispheres affects the abilities and activities of a person;
to investigate how the uneven development of the hemispheres affects human behavior;
determine at what age the dominant hemisphere is determined;
to study the possibilities and prospects of targeted stimulation of the activity of the less developed hemisphere to improve the functioning of the brain as a whole;
find out the dependence of resistance to stress on the proportionality of the development of the cerebral hemispheres.
American psychologist Howard Gardner at the end of the 20th century put forward a hypothesis about the existence of seven types of intelligence: logical-mathematical, verbal, musical, visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal. Practice modern education and a utilitarian practical approach to narrowly specialized types of professional activity leads to the fact that everything a person does improves (trains) only a certain type of thinking. For the most part, this is logical-mathematical and verbal thinking, which is a function of the left hemisphere of the brain. A number of creative professions in the field of art also stand out, but their brightest representatives most often lack pronounced abilities for analytics, which indicates a lower involvement of the left hemisphere.
Left hemisphere.
The main area of specialization of the left hemisphere is logical thinking, and until recently, physicians considered this hemisphere to be dominant. However, in fact, it dominates only when performing the following functions.
language abilities. It controls speech, reading and writing abilities, remembers facts, names, dates and their spelling.
analytical thinking. The left hemisphere is responsible for logic and analysis. It analyzes all the facts. Numbers and mathematical symbols are also recognized by the left hemisphere.
literal understanding of words. The left hemisphere can only understand the literal meaning of words.
sequence of information processing. Information is processed by the left hemisphere sequentially in stages.
mathematical ability:
Numbers and symbols are also recognized by the left hemisphere. Logical analytical approaches, which are necessary for solving mathematical problems, are also a product of the work of the left hemisphere.
control over the movements of the right half of the body.
When you raise your right hand, it means that the command to raise it came from the left hemisphere.
Right hemisphere.
The main area of specialization of the right hemisphere is intuition. As a rule, it is not considered dominant. It is responsible for the following functions.
processing of non-verbal information:
The right hemisphere specializes in processing information, which is expressed not in words, but in symbols and images.
spatial orientation:
The right hemisphere is responsible for the perception of location and spatial orientation in general. It is thanks to the right hemisphere that you can navigate the terrain and make mosaic puzzle pictures.
musicality:
Musical abilities, as well as the ability to perceive music, depend on the right hemisphere, although, however, the left hemisphere is responsible for musical education.
metaphors:
With the help of the right hemisphere, we understand metaphors and the results of the work of another's imagination. Thanks to him, we can understand not only the literal meaning of what we hear or read. For example, if someone says: "He hangs on my tail," then just the right hemisphere will understand what exactly this person wanted to say.
imagination:
The right hemisphere gives us the ability to dream and fantasize. With the help of the right hemisphere, we can make up different stories. By the way, the question "What if ..." also asks the right hemisphere.
artistic ability:
The right hemisphere is responsible for the ability to visual arts.
Although emotions are not a product of the functioning of the right hemisphere, it is associated with them more closely than the left.
It turns out that you are either a logician or an intuitionist? Not certainly in that way. It is believed that the most important discoveries in science, accomplishments in art, and other achievements of a person that go beyond the "usual" and "standard" were made and are being made at moments of equal activity of both hemispheres of the brain. These are the notorious dreams, where the solution of some problem comes (for example, Dmitry Mendeleev saw his table of chemical elements in a dream), and insight at the moment of performing non-standard actions or unusual situations. A number of scientists suggest that this is the well-coordinated work of the entire brain, logic, together with the intuitive and creative principle. According to one version, which has enough evidence, such states of "illumination" occur when the usually more "passive" hemisphere is included in the work. Certain targeted workouts help turn it on. Let's say a scientist can be helped by immersion in a completely different kind of activity. The same Dmitry Mendeleev, an outstanding chemist, devoted quite a lot of time to the manufacture of suitcases. The scientist had such a hobby. Modern psychoanalysts would call it "training the right hemisphere of the brain", because any kind of creativity, needlework, applied art is directly related to "right hemisphere" thinking. The activity of the right hemisphere gives us new opportunities, however, if it dominates, the type of thinking becomes chaotic, incapable of analysis. The uniform development of the cerebral hemispheres is what will allow a person to discover the ideal balance.
Thus, the task of stimulating the brain to solve problems of any importance and complexity obviously lies in the area of harmonious interaction between the hemispheres and activation of the hemisphere that is less involved in normal activities.
Chapter II. FUNCTIONAL ASYMMETRY OF THE HEMISPHERES OF THE BRAIN AS A RESULT OF FEATURES OF UPBRINGING, EDUCATION, DEVELOPMENT
Functional asymmetry of the cerebral hemispheres is not the norm in the strict sense. The degree of development and activity of brain regions depends on how a person’s personality is formed from the first years of life, what tasks, “logical” or “emotional-artistic”, prevail in formation and development. Modern educational methods develop mainly the left hemisphere, ignoring the other half of mental capabilities. Modern schools and universities are focused more on the development of logical-sign, left-hemispheric components of thinking, which leads to their dominance in the process of forming a human personality. Right hemispheric figurative, creative thinking is gradually oppressed - talented children do not develop their abilities, lose their uniqueness and originality of thinking.
According to studies, up to about ten years old, children are activated, i.e. predominantly the right hemisphere and the first signaling system dominate, so the vast majority of younger students are not of the mental type, but of the artistic type. Consequently, initially, most of them have left-handedness due to the active right hemisphere of the brain, and only thanks to the entire education system, including preschool, in Russia there is a huge number of right-handed children with poor handwriting.
For comparison:
IN primary school There is one left-handed child for every five right-handed children. After a few years of study, the picture changes. In the middle and senior level, there is one left-handed child per 10 right-handed children. (About 90% of people have a leading right hand and only 10% have a left hand or equally good left and right hand).
The easiest way for short time to minimize the asymmetry of brain development is associated precisely with the skills of owning the body. You can actually reduce asymmetry by learning to control both the right and left parts of the body equally. Experts advise, while doing physical education, to change the jogging leg (supporting), as well as to train to write with both the left and right hands. This method has long been considered almost the only one, but modern research has been able to offer other methods. Let's take a closer look at one of these.
Chapter III. ACQUAINTANCE WITH RECEPTIONS AND TECHNIQUES OF RIGHT-HEMISPHERE DRAWING
Right Brain Drawing is an intensive method of teaching drawing, building artistic confidence and accessing the creative powers of the brain. Designed by American art teacher Dr. B. Edwards and is based on a study of the brain of Nobel laureate Dr. R. Sperry. The original six-month course of study was improved and reduced to 40 hours, i.e. up to 5 days of 8-hour lessons or 8 five-hour lessons, respectively. How does the method work? The right hemisphere of the brain has a creative power, a sense of space and form, and therefore a natural "natural" ability to draw, while the left hemisphere senses languages, logic, symbols, but does not know how to draw realistically at all. According to the methodology, in childhood we are all artists, but since the right hemisphere is active, and the left hemisphere is “silent”, children's drawings are chaotic and unrealistic. They are at this stage of a child's development and cannot be believable, "adult" pictures. Growing up, we forget that we are artists, although thanks to the development of the left hemisphere we could already draw real pictures. It's just that the left hemisphere "wins" the right. The dominant left hemisphere interferes with the right in its attempts to draw. In such cases, a person considers himself completely incapable of drawing. In the right hemisphere drawing course, the student is given tasks and exercises that the left hemisphere refuses to do as frivolous, ineffective and “not his own”, and this, in turn, frees the right hemisphere for drawing. In this way, the right hemisphere is activated and attending courses discover with great surprise that they are able to draw "real" pictures. It happens incredibly fast. Speed is achieved precisely due to the inclusion in the work of the right hemisphere of the brain.
Exploring the issues of asymmetry of the hemispheres of the brain, I attended the first lesson in the technique of right-hemisphere drawing, in practice trying to confirm the theory.
The simplest tactics for the first lesson of the drawing training cycle, which allow you to awaken the right hemisphere of the brain:
.Psychological environment. The teacher is infinitely confident in the effectiveness of the methodology and shows the work of the same students - their drawings when they first came to class for the first time, drawings after 5 hours of training, drawings after a course of 40 hours. The works convincingly prove that learning from scratch is possible.
.Removing barriers. Students perform tasks that are insane and ridiculous from the point of view of the left hemisphere, for example, dipping their hands in gouache, dragging their fingers along the paper. Performing meaningless actions is impossible for the left hemisphere, its work is slowed down.
.No professional artistic terms. Explaining to students the simplest questions - how to hold a brush, how deep to dip a brush in gouache, etc. - the teacher resorts to "funny and childish" vocabulary. Brush strokes are called “tyk”, “shmyak”, “squeeze”, “blooper”, etc. Here the logic fails, but it is necessary to repeat after the teacher, and the student is forced to understand and communicate in such a “childish”, “figurative” language. There is training, but it is difficult to perceive it in terms of logic.
.One of the tricks is border crossing. The task is to paint over a sheet of the album as a background for the picture, not paying attention to the "diaper" - this is a substrate from newspapers. The task also breaks the logic. Then the drawing or part of it should also go beyond the boundaries of the sheet. Along with the drawing, the perception of a person goes beyond the boundaries of the usual, the right hemisphere is activated, the left - “in shock”.
.The teacher offers a sequence of actions in a "childish" language, the student reproduces it. The student does not know what drawing he is currently drawing, what exactly will be shown. The stereotype of the goal and its achievement, one of the prerequisites for the work of the left hemisphere, is broken.
.Mood change. After a certain time of completing tasks, the consciousness already refuses to perceive what is happening from the point of view of logic, but just at that moment something begins to work out. Own drawings cause surprise and "childish joy". The right hemispheric mode is an uncritical state of self-satisfaction, mild euphoria, a state of flight, a state of "here and now" and an excellent resource for many hours of work without fatigue. That is why many hours of classes are absolutely easy.
The result of the first (5 hours) lesson “with the left hemisphere turned off” is 10 quite realistic gouache drawings, which seems completely impossible to an outsider if the beginner did not have serious drawing skills before. Plus a feeling of high spirits, because I had to make sure that, it seems, nothing is really impossible for a person. Actually, this is the purpose of the course. Entering into a state of increased activity of the right hemisphere of the brain, to give drawing skills, as well as fix positive emotions for the inclusion of this activity. With each lesson, right hemisphere thinking is connected more and more easily, and after the course, you can use the right hemisphere in other situations, when performing any other tasks.
The result of the entire course of classes (according to the reviews of those who attend it, as well as their relatives and friends) is not only the ability to draw. Although it is the high level of fine art in the works of students that confirms that right-brain thinking has become more developed. Former students say that they perceive life more vividly, smile more often, and are less nervous. There is a certain psychological stability, courage, self-confidence, an intuitive ability to abstract from some situations in time, or vice versa, to make the right, but not always logical decision, and most importantly, there is a desire to develop and improve further. Emotions and intuition are what the right hemisphere is responsible for, and this is another confirmation of the effectiveness of training aimed at developing it.
So, I received practical confirmation that it is possible to develop right-brain thinking in a directed way. The development of right hemispheric thinking leads to the discovery of new opportunities, abilities and qualities of a person, at least changing the quality of his life for the better.
stress brain asymmetry
CONCLUSION
So, the functional asymmetry of the cerebral hemispheres affects the success of a person in a particular activity. People with a more developed left hemisphere better master the exact sciences, analyze what is happening. People with a more developed right hemisphere can view the whole situation as a whole, they manage to process information in parallel and impartially. The dominant hemisphere is determined at the age of 9-11 years. It has been confirmed that the development of one or another hemisphere is associated with the peculiarities of education, upbringing, and development. Scientists have proven the benefits of equally good skills in both right- and left-brain thinking. In a number of studies of groups of individuals with uniform development of the hemispheres, it has been shown that the vast majority of subjects equally successfully completed tasks, both related to the use of counting and logical operations, and requiring spatial-figurative orientation. Tasks, with half of which the control group could not cope, persons with pronounced asymmetry in the development of the hemispheres. It was also found that the most resistant to psychological stress is a person with mutually developed hemispheres.
It has been proven that it is possible to purposefully activate the work of the less developed hemisphere of the brain. In order to most progressively and expediently develop both hemispheres of the brain, education should be built taking into account the figurative thinking that prevails in children. Those. the development of new teaching methods based on the maximum use of the figurative type of information processing is required. While there are few such methods, however, they are available. The development of such teaching methods is useful and promising right now, when children are taught an analytical and very one-sided approach to the perception of educational material. Initiation into any kind of art is generally not considered a direct task of the school, and as a result there is no counterbalance to the withering formal logic.
This leads not only to a narrowing of interests and insufficiently harmonious development - the lack of figurative thinking negatively affects creativity even in the field of the exact sciences, weakens the mechanisms of psychological defense.
Bibliography
1. Howard Gardner, The Structure of the Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, M., Williams, 2007
Karl Albrecht, Practical Intelligence. The science of common sense, M., "Business Psychologists", 2011
Reznikova Zh. I., Intelligence and language of animals and humans. Fundamentals of cognitive ethology, M., "Akademkniga", 2005
4. Betty Edwards Right Brain Drawing - Seven Lessons to Enhance Creativity and Artistic Self Confidence, 2004
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This is the conditional name of a person whose right hemisphere is turned off and mental activity is carried out only by the left.
The first and main feature of a “left hemisphere” person is that he has preserved speech. This was to be expected, because the left hemisphere is speech. Another thing is unexpected: he enters into a conversation more willingly and more easily, seizes the initiative in a conversation, his vocabulary becomes richer and more diverse, his answers more detailed and detailed. He is overly verbose, even talkative. Along with this, he also improves the perception of someone else's speech.
Speech audiometry is used to study speech perception. Specially selected groups of words recorded on magnetic tape are fed through headphones separately to each ear. First, the threshold for detecting speech sounds is measured - the minimum intensity of the speech signal at which a person already hears speech, but still cannot make out the words. The volume is then gradually increased and the person should repeat the words they hear. Speech intelligibility is measured - the number of correctly repeated words in% of all heard.
In a "left-lobular" person, the threshold for detecting speech sounds decreases - he catches quieter speech than he could do in the usual "bihemispheric" state, He repeats the words he hears faster and much more accurately. In general, in a “left lobe” person, speech activity is increased, and speech hearing is facilitated.
Are these facts sufficient to assert that speech activity does it improve in the absence of the right hemisphere? Let's listen carefully to the "left-brained" person. Although he has become more talkative, his speech is losing its intonational expressiveness - it is monotonous, colorless, dull. Moreover, not only is the expressiveness imparted to speech by the voice lost, the voice itself changes: it acquires a nasal, somewhat nasal tone or becomes unnatural, as if barking. Such a speech defect is called dysprosody, since the intonation-voice components of speech are called prosodic (“prosody” - “melody”).
Along with dysprosody, the perception of the prosodic components of the interlocutor's speech is disturbed in a “left-brained” person.
Two series of experiments were carried out. In the first, a person was asked to listen through headphones to short phrases made up of meaningless syllables, but pronounced with an exaggerated intonation - interrogative, angry, plaintive, enthusiastic, etc. It was necessary to determine the meaning of intonation, to say with what expression the phrase was uttered. In the second series of experiments, it was proposed to listen to vowel sounds uttered by a man and a woman through headphones. It was necessary to repeat the sound and say in what voice it was pronounced.
It turned out that the “left hemispheric” person loses the ability to understand the meaning of speech intonations. He listens attentively, tries to decipher the meaningless syllables, repeats them very accurately, but cannot say with what expression (interrogative, angry, etc.) they are pronounced. He can't tell the difference between a male voice and a female voice.
Everyone knows that the same words spoken with different intonations mean far from the same thing. Similarly, the same words spoken by different people (that is, different voices) can have completely different meanings. Often what is said means more than what is said. Prosodic components give speech concreteness, figurativeness, sensual coloring. A speech message devoid of these components sounds vague, formal, and often incomprehensible.
Thus, along with the preservation of the formal richness of speech, vocabulary and grammar, along with an increase in speech activity, along with an exacerbation of verbal hearing, the “left-brained” person has lost that imagery and concreteness of speech, which is given to it by intonation-voice expressiveness.
So, we are faced with a paradoxical situation: on the one hand, some characteristics of speech hearing are improving, while others are deteriorating. What happened to hearing? Is it only the perception of speech sounds or the auditory function as a whole that has changed? Let's see how a "left hemispheric" person perceives non-speech sounds, sound images.
Coughing, laughter, snoring, animal voices - barking, neighing, grunting - sounds found in nature - thunderstorm noise, roar of the surf - industrial and transport noises were recorded on magnetic tape.
In a "left hemisphere" person, the recognition of such sound images deteriorates sharply - many well-known sounds now cause only bewilderment. In those cases when he does recognize them, this recognition requires much more time from him. Essentially, a "left-brained" person develops auditory agnosia, a disturbance in the perception of complex sounds. A similar disorder can be identified in relation to musical images.
A “left-brained” person not only ceases to recognize familiar melodies, but also cannot sing them, even if he hears music: he begins to be out of tune and, in the end, prefers to count the rhythm without a melody.
Unable to cope with the recognition of sound images, the “left-hemispheric” person tries to get around the difficulties in a very peculiar way: he begins to classify them. Instead of saying: “this is barking”, “this is laughter”, etc., he says: “this is a beast ”,“ this is a person ”,“ this is a folk song ”,“ this is a romance ”. As a rule, he is mistaken, but the very desire to classify, to put everything into a scheme, is symptomatic. Later we will see that such a desire is by no means accidental.
How to interpret the results of the study of the perception of sound images? Maybe a “left-hemispheric” person simply forgets familiar sounds, but the perception itself is not disturbed? This assumption can be tested.
Pairs of short musical phrases are recorded on magnetic tape. Each phrase consists of four notes. In some pairs, the phrases are the same, in others they are slightly different from each other. It is necessary to determine whether the phrases in the pair are the same or they are different. In this task, the ability to distinguish close musical images is studied. Remembering what a person knew in the past is not required. And with this task, the “left-hemispheric” person copes worse than the “two-hemispheric” one.
He can hardly tell the difference, everything sounds the same to him. Thus, the point is not in violation of memory, but in the originality of auditory perception.
What is the reason for this peculiarity? Has your hearing sensitivity changed at all? No, the hearing acuity, which was in the "bihemispheric" state, remained the same. But let's remember all the auditory disorders in a "left hemisphere" person - difficulties in recognizing musical and other sound images, difficulties in recognizing male and female voices, a complete misunderstanding of intonations. In other words, all types of figurative auditory perception are violated in him. Undoubtedly, we are faced here with a special state, with a selective, special violation of figurative perception (as already mentioned, the perception of words has even improved).
The inferiority of figurative perception can also be noticed in the visual sphere. If a “left-brained” person is asked to pick up pairs of identical shapes - triangles and squares, divided into colored or shaded sectors, he will not cope with the task, he cannot immediately cover the location of the sectors, their coloring and shading. He will endlessly shuffle the pieces, repeatedly check them with each other, but he will not be able to pick up the pairs correctly. He will also not be able to notice the missing detail in the unfinished drawings - the absence of a tail in a pig, a bow in glasses, etc. Thus, a “left-brained” person turns out to be helpless when performing tasks that require orientation in a visual, figurative situation, requiring specific features to be taken into account objects.
Of particular interest is the behavior of a “left hemisphere” person in a situation where he is given freedom of choice, the opportunity to operate with visual or abstract signs at his own discretion.
4 cards are placed in front of a person: the Arabic number “5” is written on one, the same number in the Roman script (V) is written on the other, the Arabic number “10” on the third, the same number in the Roman script (X) on the fourth - and they are asked to divide these cards into two groups, putting the "same" together. Obviously, when dividing, one can be guided by an abstract sign of a number (and then fives will fall into one group, and tens into another), or a visual figurative sign - the inscription of numbers (and then Arabic numerals will fall into one group, and Roman numbers into another).
In a normal state, a person, as a rule, experiences doubts and indicates two equally probable ways of classifying. A “left-hemispheric” person does not experience hesitation, he invariably chooses an abstract symbolic sign - he always puts fives in one group, tens in another, regardless of the shape of the numbers.
From what has been said, it is clear that a “left hemisphere” person has a stratification of mental activity - figurative perception is defective, and the perception of words is facilitated; operating with visual concrete features of objects is defective, and operating with concepts is facilitated.
We encounter the same stratification in the study of memory. The “left hemisphere” person retained the stock of school theoretical information, that is, the knowledge acquired through words did not suffer. The ability to memorize new verbal material is also preserved - he can immediately, after hearing, repeat a series of words. And he remembers them for a long time and after 2-3 hours, already in his usual state, he can find among the many words those that he was given to memorize. However, if he is asked to remember not words, but irregular shapes that cannot be called a word, then the images of these figures will not be retained in the memory of a “left-brained” person.
There is another important characteristic of the behavior and psyche of such a person - understanding, or, as neurophysiologists say, understanding the environment, orientation in place and time. A "left-brained" person, based on his answers alone, appears to be well oriented. He correctly names the hospital in which he is located, the number of the department, the date, the day of the week. But it is worth asking him in more detail, and then it turns out that, correctly identifying his location in words, knowing that he is in the hospital, the “left-hemispheric” person does not recognize the room. He looks in bewilderment at the office, where he has been many times, and assures that he came here for the first time. Or, while correctly naming the date, he cannot support his answer with specific observations.
Sometimes, even looking at bare trees and snowdrifts outside the window, a “left-brained” person cannot immediately tell whether it is winter or summer. True, if you seek an answer, he will report that "January is a winter month," but this is only a formal conclusion, and not the result of direct impressions. Thus, in a “left hemisphere” person, with intact verbal orientation, visual orientation in place and time is grossly violated.
One of the most striking changes in the mental state of the “left-brained” person was a shift in the emotional sphere. The mood of such a person improves, he becomes softer, more friendly, more cheerful. This shift is especially striking in patients with depression, that is, with a pathologically low mood. In the "left hemispheric" state, the gloominess and depression characteristic of these patients disappear; focus on painful experiences is replaced by interest in topics not related to the disease; an optimistic assessment of one's own situation appears, faith in recovery, the future is drawn as encouraging, a smile begins to play on the face, a tendency to joke appears.
Let us sum up what we have learned about the "left hemisphere" person, in other words, we summarize the facts that characterize the psyche of a person with the right hemisphere turned off, when only the left hemisphere is active.
What is defective, what is damaged? What has been preserved or enhanced? Those types of mental activity that underlie figurative thinking suffered. Those types of mental activity that underlie abstract theoretical thinking have been preserved or even intensified. Such stratification of the psyche is accompanied by a positive emotional tone.
22. "RIGHT HEMISPHERE" PERSON
Now let's see what is the antipode of the "left hemispheric" person - the "right hemisphere" person. This is the same person, but now his left hemisphere is turned off and only the right one works.
In contrast to the “left-hemispheric” person, the “right-hemispheric” person’s speech capabilities are sharply limited - the dictionary is poor, words denoting abstract concepts have fallen out of it, it is difficult to remember the names of objects, especially rarely used, although the “right-hemispheric” person can explain the purpose of any object and show how to use it. This suggests that he recognizes the objects. He understands speech poorly, it is necessary to speak with him in very short, simply constructed phrases. His own speech also consists of simple phrases, often of single words. The speech activity of a “right-handed” person is sharply reduced - he is laconic, more willing to respond with facial expressions and gestures than with a word. It is difficult to talk with him, briefly answering one or two questions, he falls silent. Speech attention is also reduced, when he is addressed, he does not notice this, you have to specially attract his attention. The threshold for detecting speech sounds in a "right hemisphere" person is increased - he notices only loud-sounding words. But even quite loudly spoken words, he is far from always able to correctly perceive and repeat, although such a drop in sensitivity to the sounds of speech is not at all associated with any hearing impairment.
At the same time, the voice of a “right hemisphere” person remains the same as it was: despite the stinginess of speech, its intonation pattern is preserved. Hearing for the prosodic components of speech did not suffer either: a “right-brained” person even better than usual, distinguishes between male and female voices, and more accurately and correctly assesses the intonations of the interlocutor.
If attention to words in a “right hemisphere” person is reduced, then when listening to various non-verbal sounds, he is both attentive and active. He recognizes these sounds even easier and faster than in the usual "bihemispheric" state, although, for example, such a sound as the roar of the surf was rarely recognized by people in the normal state and with great difficulty. Listening to the melodies of songs, a “right-brained” person recognizes them much faster than usual. Not only that, he has a need to hum them, he does not even have to be asked about it. Unlike himself in his “left brain” state, he now reproduces melodies very accurately. However, if you ask him to classify sound images, he will refuse, this task is too much for him.
As you can see, the “right hemisphere” person also had a restructuring of perception. But it is opposite to that observed in the "left hemisphere": in the "right hemisphere" person, we are faced with a special condition - a deterioration in verbal perception and a selective improvement in all types of figurative perception.
This is confirmed by other studies. A “right-brained” person easily picks up pairs of triangles and squares, divided into shaded or colored sectors, and does it faster than in the normal state. He has no difficulty in evaluating unfinished drawings and quickly notices the defect in the image. The predominance of figurative perception comes out especially effectively in a situation where the “right hemisphere” person is given the freedom to choose a feature. Classifying four cards with Arabic and Roman numerals, he chooses a visual font feature, and not an abstract numerical one - he combines Roman numerals into one group, Arabic numerals into another. He recognizes all the numbers, but when classifying, he focuses on the way they are drawn, and not on the meaning of the numbers.
The memory of a "right hemisphere" person acquires traits opposite to those observed in a "left hemisphere" person. School theoretical baggage, that is, knowledge acquired through words, has been largely lost. The ability to memorize words is also impaired. A “right-brained” person cannot repeat a series of several words immediately after listening, at best, he will repeat 2-3 from the left out of 10. But even if you manage to keep these words in memory for a while, then after 2 hours he will no longer remember them and will not find among other words. At the same time, he retained his figurative non-verbal-spring memory - he is able to remember figures of a bizarre shape and in a few hours choose them among many others.
Orientation in place and time in the "right hemisphere" person is also changed, but differently than in the "left hemisphere". If you rely only on the answers, then the "right hemisphere" person seems completely disoriented - he cannot say where he is, name the date and even the year. However, he notices the details of the situation and, based on these observations, will say that he is probably in the hospital, although he does not know which one. He recognizes the office in which the research is taking place, although he does not say what the purpose of this office is. Being unable to name either the month or the year, he, looking out the window, will correctly determine the time of year and presumably tell what month it is. Thus, in the absence of verbal orientation, the visual concrete orientation of the "right hemisphere" person is preserved.
Recall that the "left brain" state was accompanied by a change in mood. And in the “right hemispheric” state, an emotional shift occurs, but the opposite in sign - towards negative emotions. The mood worsens, the person becomes gloomy, pessimistically assesses both his current situation and his prospects, complains of feeling unwell. It is difficult to distract him from sad thoughts and complaints.
Let's summarize what we have learned about the "right hemisphere" person - a person with a turned off left hemisphere. Obviously, here, too, we are dealing with a disorganized psyche, but this disorganization is different from that of a "left lobe" person. In the "right hemisphere" those types of mental activity that underlie abstract theoretical thinking have suffered, and those types of it that are associated with figurative thinking have been preserved or even intensified. This type of stratification of the psyche corresponds to a negative emotional tone.
Features of the cerebral organization of mental processes in left-handed people.
The origin (more precisely, the design) of left-handedness is associated with the action of three groups of factors - environmental (including cultural), genetic and pathological. One of the first genetic models of the inheritance of handedness was based on Mendel's law and suggested that this quality is determined by the action of a single gene. However, it was found that almost half of the children of two left-handed parents are right-handed, which contradicts this model.
Another model is based on the fact that handedness is a function of two genes, one of which determines the localization of speech centers (L - in the left hemisphere and dominates, I - in the right hemisphere, recessive), and the other determines which hand the speech hemisphere will control - the contralateral or ipsilateral (C and C, respectively); this model was proposed by J. Levy and T. Nagilaki.
And, finally, the third model, proposed by the English psychologist M. Annette, is based on the hypothesis of the existence of a separate “right-hand shift” gene and its recessive allele. The presence of this gene provides the initial predisposition of a person to ensure that his right hand dominates, and the center of speech is located in the left hemisphere.
There is currently several views on the natural abilities of left-handers compared to right-handers.
The first is based on the fact that indicators of behavior and neuropsychic activity in left-handers are worse than in right-handers. Supporters of this approach cite data on the frequency of left-handedness among patients with epilepsy, oligophrenia, schizophrenia, hereditary alcoholism, as well as the fact that, becoming adults, these individuals retain low adaptive capabilities, a certain "fragility" of mental activity.
The second approach affirms the equality of abilities of right-handers and left-handers.
According to the third approach, left-handers have higher rates of neuropsychic activity and greater adaptive capabilities than right-handers. This is justified by the fact that the left-hander constantly has to adapt to the "right-handed" world (indeed, take at least such trifles as scissors or turnstiles in the subway, designed for right-handers).
24. Electroencephalography (EEG)
Hardware method for studying the activity of the brain by recording the electrical activity of brain cells, fixed on the surface of the head. The research method is based on graphic recording of the received electrical signals and their interpretation. The subject during the study is reclining in a special chair. The recording procedure is harmless, painless, lasts no more than 20-25 minutes. Use tests with opening and closing the eyes, with irritation by light and sound.
This study plays a decisive role in the diagnosis of diseases manifested by attacks of loss of consciousness, convulsions, falls, fainting, vegetative crises. In some cases, it is after the EEG that the neurologist may suggest serious brain diseases - epilepsy, encephalitis, tumor.
EEG is essential in the diagnosis of diseases such as headache, epilepsy,
panic attacks, hysteria, fainting, drug poisoning, and any unusual blackouts or falls. The results of the study make it possible to make the right choice of drugs, and in a number of diseases - to identify contraindications to the appointment of certain drugs and non-drug methods of treatment.
Electroencephalogram readings for any disease should be correlated with clinical examination data.