Figure 4.1 Drawing hands by MC Escher

Figure 1.2 The brain viewed from above, with right hemisphere displaced

to reveal the corpus callosum

Figure 1.1 Embryonic origins of the cerebral hemispheres

frontal lobe parietal lobe

occipital lobe

temporal lobe cerebellum

Rolandic fissure

(or central sulcus)

Figure 1.3 The brain viewed from the left side, showing main regions and landmarks

Sylvian fissure

orbitofrontal cortex

dorsolateral prefrontal

cortex ventromedial cortex

limbic system

anterior cingulate cortex

Figure 2.2 Prefrontal cortex

Figure 1.5 Yakovlevian torque (brain viewed from below)

Some areas of difference

• breadth and flexibility v focus and grasp

• the new v the known

• possibility v predictability

• integration v division

• the hierarchy of attention

• the whole v the part

• context v abstraction

• individuals v categories

• the differences in sameness

• the personal v the impersonal

• living v non-living

• empathy and ‘theory of mind’

• emotional asymmetry – emotional receptivity

– emotional expressivity

– differences in emotional affinity

• reason v rationality

• the twin bodies

• meaning and the implicit

• music and time

• depth

• self-awareness and emotional timbre

• moral sense

• the self

Figure 2.14 Duck-rabbit

Figure 2.15 Necker cube

Figure 2.4 H composed of Es and 4 composed of 8s

Figure 2.6 Emergence of the Gestalt

Figure 2.8 Drawings of a man by a subject with a right parietal lesion,

and of a bicycle and a house by a subject with a right parieto-occipital lesion

(from Hécaen & Ajuriaguerra 1952)

Figure 2.5 Templates (left column) copied by patients with neglect (right column)

Figure 2.9 Tree drawn by the same subject:

under normal conditions; with the right hemisphere inactivated; and with the left hemisphere inactivated

(from Nikolaenko 2001)

Figure 2.10 Flower as drawn by the same subjects:

in normal conditions; with the right hemisphere inactivated; and with the left hemisphere inactivated (from Nikolaenko 1997)

Figure 2.11 Table as drawn by the same subjects:

in normal conditions; with the right hemisphere inactivated; and with the left hemisphere inactivated

(from Nikolaenko 1997)

both left only right only

cube table tree person flower

Figure 2.12 Everyday objects drawn ‘according to the left hemisphere’, with the right hemisphere inactivated

(from Nikolaenko 1997)

left hand (RH only) right hand (LH only)

pre-operative

post-operative

Figure 2.13 Cube drawing before and after commissurotomy. Pre-operatively, the patient could draw a cube

with either hand. Post-operatively, however, the preferred right hand performed poorly

(from Gazzaniga & LeDoux, 1978).

Figure 1.5 Yakovlevian torque (brain viewed from below)

Wernicke’s area Broca’s area

Heschl’s gyri

planum temporale

(within Sylvian fissure)

Figure 1.4 The language areas of the left hemisphere

the holy

values of vitality

(Lebenswerte)

values of use and pleasure

values of the intellect

(geistige Werte)

left hemisphere: higher

values in service of lower

right hemisphere:

lower values in service

of higher

Figure 4.3 Hierarchy of values, after Scheler

The hall of mirrors

• the natural world

• culture

• the body

• art

• religion

The left hemisphere world …

• loss of the broader picture

• knowledge replaced by information, tokens or representations

• loss of concepts of skill and judgment

• abstraction and reification

• bureaucracy (Berger): – procedures that are known

– anonymity

– organisability

– predictability

– justice reduced to mere equality

– explicit abstraction

• loss of the sense of uniqueness

… the left hemisphere world …

• quantity the only criterion

• ‘either/or’

• reasonableness replaced by rationality

• failure of common sense

• systems designed to maximise utility

• loss of social cohesion

• depersonalisation

• paranoia and lack of trust

• need for total control

• anger and aggression

• the passive victim

…the left hemisphere world

• art conceptual – visual art lack a sense of depth, and distorted or bizarre

perspectives

– music would be reduced to little more than rhythm

– language diffuse, excessive, lacking in concrete referents

• deliberate undercutting of the sense of awe or wonder

• flow just the sum of an infinite series of ‘pieces’

• discarding of tacit forms of knowing – ‘network of small complicated rules’

• spectators rather than actors

• dangerously unwarranted optimism