Thank you for sharing another wonderful conversation and including the follow-up flashcards. I also am very interested in learning more about the affective styles and look forward to hearing more about this from you in the future.
Some very elementary questions came to mind, and I am just wondering.as I write this -
Is inter-hemispheric coordination which jugglers use the same that is engaged for playing a musical instrument, typing, or learning a language, and if so, what might make these skills harder for some to acquire than others?
How might a virtuoso musican's hemispheric coordination be different than other musicians? Whether it be juggling or other kind of physical performance, are the differences in skill levels achieved through practice or is there something else within the brain and its function that supports a higher level of skill?
Two points; years ago I use the technique from Drawing from the right side and copied an upside down portrait and was able to create a very realistic rendition. As you noted, the process forced my left hemisphere to stay quite and not draw my primative memory's imagine of what a person looks like. The right side drew the spaces between the lines.
Secondly, I wonder about your thoughts about "The Master and His Emissary (2009") by Iain McGilchrist? McGilchrist says the right hemisphere has a wide-angle view, sees the big picture and the whole situation via context. The left left hemisphere is more of a zoom-in view, and focuses on details and separates things into parts.
Socially, McGilchrist’s claim is that when a “left-hemisphere style” of attention (narrow, abstract, rule/metric-driven) starts running the show, society can become good at control and efficiency but bad at wisdom and meaning.
Thank you! I was interested in what you said about drawing from the right side of the brain. As an artist I often think about the “visual” vs the “intellectual” brain—a very simplified perspective. There is a lot of overlap between hemispheres, but the distinction is useful in practice. The book Painting with Your Artist’s Brain has been a useful tool for me in understanding how my eye perceives shapes, color, and value relationships, and how those interact across the surface. I notice that if I label an object as “tree,” my perception tends to shift quickly into a stored symbol—something like a general template I’ve used since childhood. At that point I’m more likely to paint the symbol of a tree rather than what I’m actually seeing in front of me. For example, the brain simplifies a tree into something like a “lollipop” shape—circle and trunk—even though in reality the canopy is much more complex. The edges are irregular and shifting, and the trunk is rarely truly straight. Drawing objects upside down, as mentioned in another comment, seems to reduce the speed at which the object becomes a symbol. The symbolic tendency is probably adaptive—it helps us recognize things quickly, which is useful for survival. But that same efficiency seems to override direct observation. So for me, awareness of how my brain shifts quickly to naming and training myself to be more attentive to what is actually in front of me visually has been helpful. Training myself to see as the eye sees rather than what I think I see.
Have you read Jill Bolte Taylor’s (Neuroanatomist) My Stroke of Insight? What stands out in my memory (from the book) is that her stroke apparently took a large part of her judging/categorizing brain « offline » during a brain bleed on the left, and though her vision, hearing and comprehension was fuzzy (because sights/sounds/ideas were not being « organized » by the left brain into something comprehensible, she felt as though she was « in bliss. » The implication was that when left brain judgments were gone (ego?), what remained was right brain bliss. Thoughts :) ?
Thank you for sharing another wonderful conversation and including the follow-up flashcards. I also am very interested in learning more about the affective styles and look forward to hearing more about this from you in the future.
Some very elementary questions came to mind, and I am just wondering.as I write this -
Is inter-hemispheric coordination which jugglers use the same that is engaged for playing a musical instrument, typing, or learning a language, and if so, what might make these skills harder for some to acquire than others?
How might a virtuoso musican's hemispheric coordination be different than other musicians? Whether it be juggling or other kind of physical performance, are the differences in skill levels achieved through practice or is there something else within the brain and its function that supports a higher level of skill?
Thank you again for these episodes of Dharma Lab.
Two points; years ago I use the technique from Drawing from the right side and copied an upside down portrait and was able to create a very realistic rendition. As you noted, the process forced my left hemisphere to stay quite and not draw my primative memory's imagine of what a person looks like. The right side drew the spaces between the lines.
Secondly, I wonder about your thoughts about "The Master and His Emissary (2009") by Iain McGilchrist? McGilchrist says the right hemisphere has a wide-angle view, sees the big picture and the whole situation via context. The left left hemisphere is more of a zoom-in view, and focuses on details and separates things into parts.
Socially, McGilchrist’s claim is that when a “left-hemisphere style” of attention (narrow, abstract, rule/metric-driven) starts running the show, society can become good at control and efficiency but bad at wisdom and meaning.
Thank you! I was interested in what you said about drawing from the right side of the brain. As an artist I often think about the “visual” vs the “intellectual” brain—a very simplified perspective. There is a lot of overlap between hemispheres, but the distinction is useful in practice. The book Painting with Your Artist’s Brain has been a useful tool for me in understanding how my eye perceives shapes, color, and value relationships, and how those interact across the surface. I notice that if I label an object as “tree,” my perception tends to shift quickly into a stored symbol—something like a general template I’ve used since childhood. At that point I’m more likely to paint the symbol of a tree rather than what I’m actually seeing in front of me. For example, the brain simplifies a tree into something like a “lollipop” shape—circle and trunk—even though in reality the canopy is much more complex. The edges are irregular and shifting, and the trunk is rarely truly straight. Drawing objects upside down, as mentioned in another comment, seems to reduce the speed at which the object becomes a symbol. The symbolic tendency is probably adaptive—it helps us recognize things quickly, which is useful for survival. But that same efficiency seems to override direct observation. So for me, awareness of how my brain shifts quickly to naming and training myself to be more attentive to what is actually in front of me visually has been helpful. Training myself to see as the eye sees rather than what I think I see.
Looking forward to learning more!
excellent offering.
Have you read Jill Bolte Taylor’s (Neuroanatomist) My Stroke of Insight? What stands out in my memory (from the book) is that her stroke apparently took a large part of her judging/categorizing brain « offline » during a brain bleed on the left, and though her vision, hearing and comprehension was fuzzy (because sights/sounds/ideas were not being « organized » by the left brain into something comprehensible, she felt as though she was « in bliss. » The implication was that when left brain judgments were gone (ego?), what remained was right brain bliss. Thoughts :) ?