CLASS NOTES: Left Brain, Right Brain, and The Self (Buddhism and Modern Psychology )

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Notes on video lecture:

Left Brain, Right Brain, and The Self

Buddhism and Modern Psychology

Robert Wright, Princeton University

Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on October 26, 2015 (go to class or lectures)

Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:

right, disconnected, straining, flash, motivation, world, language, deserves, motivated, subliminal, animal, split, flashed, conscience, conscious, driving, overall, callosum, chicken, work, talking, randomly, shovel, hands, behavior, models, self, fabrications, Gazzaniga, Freud, answer, accurate, visual

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what do we make of this thing we call the ?

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the thing that we call the self, the me, the thing that we think is running the show, may not be running as much of the show as we think

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we may be attributing much more power and control to this concept than it really

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this idea goes back to pre-modern psychology

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: the self is controlled in large part by unconscious forces

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specific ideas that Freud came up with

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although Freud was skeptical of the power of the self, he wasn't skeptical enough

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had a three part model:

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id: harbors dark, forces

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ego: in the middle, the self, attributed independent power to it

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super-ego:

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today, many of the mind have no place for the self at all

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the modern history of doubt about the power of the self

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the brain experiments

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have very strange results

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two halves of their brains have been

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to control seizures, had their corpus severed

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at first it didn't have much noticeable effect except to control the seizures

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1960s: Michael

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pioneered studies in learning and understanding split brained patients and how their brains work

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information from right side of the field enters the left side of the brain and vice versa

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so its possible for information to be put in one side of the brain which just goes there and doesn't go to the other side of the brain

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1. word experiment

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they would flash a word in one side, patient would say, "I don't see a word"

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in most people its the left hemisphere that houses the faculties

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the left half of the brain does the

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the right hemisphere controls the left hand, the left hemisphere controls the right hand

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if you flash an instruction such as "walk" in the left field of vision so it goes to the right brain

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the person will get up and walk

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if you ask the person where he is going

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the left brain doesn't know about this, but it tends to come up with an , e.g. I'm going to get something to drink, and apparently will believe it

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2. experiment

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presented to the left hemisphere an image of a claw

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right hemisphere got image of wintery scene with a lot of snow

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let both choose from another of pictures

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hand associated with the left hemisphere chose the chicken

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hand associated with the right hemisphere chose the snow shovel

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they ask him way:

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the chicken claw goes with the chicken

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you need a to clean out the chicken shed

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so the left brain in explaining why he has a shovel has come up with a story which is coherent, it's just not true

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take away from these experiments

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1. suggest that the conscious self is capable of greatly overestimating its influence it is exerting on

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2. suggest that the conscious self can promulgate and apparently believe wildly untrue stories about what is actually true of the

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we say suggests because these were not anatomically anatomically normal people

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we are not seeing the conscious self work as it normally functions

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how to study dual-brain effects on anatomically normal people

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people are to do things and come up with stories about why they are motivate to do things

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study: pantyhose

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Nisbett and Wilson

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four pair of pantyhose

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people had a strong tendency to choose the pair on the far

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the people were not aware of this

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they would make up reasons why the one on the right were the same model

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they were to come up with a reason for what they have done

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techniques

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does not enter the conscious mind but influences behavior

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information on screen very fast

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study: squeeze

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here is a hand grip, the harder you squeeze it the more money you are going to make

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each time determined if reward would be a penny or a pound

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before they grabbed grip, a pattern would be shown, then shown pattern

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when pound was shown subliminally, they squeezed harder

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brain scan

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part associated with emotion and

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when it became aware, brain region became more active when pound was shown than penny

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scans were same for subliminal showing

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conclusion: same brain area is more active whether conscious of it or not

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"consistently, the same basal fore-brain region underpinned subliminal and conscious motivation"

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experiment: story pictures

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pictures tell coherent story

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man gets up, goes to , etc.

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then show same pictures with more added

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ask if pictures are new

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some are very similar, e.g. different picture of him to work

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some completely different, e.g. playing golf

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normally anatomically

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easily reject obviously pictures which were not there

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and will include some that are slightly different

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split brain patients

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right brain is strictly

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right brain is about detailed truth

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sees the trees instead of the forest

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left brain is more about plot line

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left brain is responsible for telling stories to the world

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left brain: the main thing is to have a story to tell

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left brain: tells stories about ourselves

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the left brain is capable of buying into massive

Vocabulary:

promulgate, v. promote or make widely known (an idea or cause) ⇒ "These experiments suggest that the conscious self can promulgate and apparently believe wildly untrue stories about what is actually true of the natural world."

Spelling Corrections:

noticable ⇒ noticeable

Ideas and Concepts:

Useful 20th century psychological insights via this morning's Buddhism and Modern Psychology class: "The thing that we call the self, the conscious me, the thing that we think is running the show, may not be running as much of the show as we think. We may be attributing much more power and control to this concept than it really deserves."

Gazzaniga and LeDoux's dual-consciousness experiment via this evening's Buddhism and Modern Psychology class: "Split-brain patients (people who have had their corpus callosum severed, which connects both hemispheres of the brain, in order to stop epileptic seizures) were asked to perform a simultaneous concept task. Each patient was shown two pictures:(1) a house in winter time, and (2) a chicken's claw. The pictures were positioned so they would exclusively be seen in only one visual field of the brain, the winter house so it would only be seen in the patient's left visual field, which corresponds to the brain's right hemisphere, and the chicken's claw so it would only be seen in the patient's right visual field, which corresponds to the brain's left hemisphere. A series of pictures was then placed in front of the patients. Gazzaniga and LeDoux then asked each patient to choose a picture with his right hand and a picture with his left hand. Each patient consistently chose the snow shovel with his left hand (corresponding to his brain's right hemisphere) and his right hand chose the chicken's head (corresponding to the brain’s left hemisphere). When the patient was asked why he had chosen the pictures he had chosen, the answer he gave was astonishing:"The chicken claw goes with the chicken head, and you need a snow shovel to clean out the chicken shed." The left brain, which is responsible for language and coming up with logical reasoning, because it was not informed about what the other half of the full brain's consciousness had experienced, had made up an answer that was coherent, but not true."