On a slightly more germaine topic to this echo, I am sure many of you
have heard people (non-medical people) talk about left brain/right brain
functions, and that the"creative" and "logical" functions involve the
use of different parts of the brain.

I am curious as to whether these psychological notions are substantiated
in neurology.  I recall hearing that brain functioning is much more
complicated than the left/right creative/logical distinctions imply.

Any medical personnel out there who might be able to assess the degree
that neurological functioning/brain structure supports the common right
brain/left brain thinking discussions in lay psychology?

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Uucp: ...{gatech,ames,rutgers}!ncar!asuvax!stjhmc!348!701!Robert.Bacal

Neurology is the basis for the lay discussions, but how accurate they
are is highly variable.  I would not characterize the right hemisphere
(or more properly the non-{*filter*} one) as being any more "creative"
than the left.  Certainly, however, logical functions are largely
the realm of the {*filter*} hemisphere.  The right hemisphere does
have a larger role in control of emotional and spatial perceptions
and actions than the left.  Springer and Deutsch, "Left Brain/
RIght Brain" is a good place for people who want to read a scientific
discussion of the subject.
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Gordon Banks  N3JXP        | "It ain't what you don't know.

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Well, I am not a medical worker, but I am interested in the topic.
My understanding is as follows.

I  believe that the  original work that  gave rise to  the split brain
theory  was a set  of studies where a  number  of subjects  had  their
Corpus  Callossums   artificially cut.  The   Corpus  Callossum is the
hardware (wetware? :-) that connects the right and left hemispheres.

The subjects were submitted to  a number  of  tests to determine  what
functionality was lost.  (By the way  some of these tests  were really
clever, and wild to watch.  I've seen some tapes of the subjects on TV
a long time ago.)  Basically they did  things like shutting one eye of
a subject, showing a  picture of a  banana  to the other  eye  and and
asking the subject to identify it.  With one eye shut it was possible,
but with  the other it  was not, presumably because the communications
links to the verbal processors had been cut.  Etc.

It is not hard to imagine how they might  have figured out that things
like spatial reasoning is carried out  in one hemisphere or linguistic
in another.   But  I have not the foggiest  notion how they might have
assigned emotions  or creativity to  one  or  the  other.  Perhaps  by
noting that   people  with  damage    (stroke,  physical,...) to   one
hemisphere  or the other  were more prone  to emotional  or creativity
deficiencies.
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Good Morning!        
--Dawn

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