A Whole New Mind- 1st Response

During the first 3 chapters of his book, Pink gave us a brief introduction to the brain and to our society. First, he explored the basic facts of how the different hemispheres of our brain work and interract with our body. He established simple facts such as, the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body and the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body. Then he introduced us to the really interesting stuff. By giving us a background of information about how the different hemispheres of the brain were view many years ago, he then leads up to the newest idea and his own theory. The right and left hemispheres each have their own way of processessing information, and both hemispheres are important in all tasks we preform. I enjoyed how he did not denounce the left brain, but rather defended the right and maintained that we need BOTH sides of our brain. The title of the book is a little deceiving.

I always knew that the right and left hemispheres were different. They teach you that in every psychology class and in most of the my speech classes. However, in our speech classes we have a strong emphasis on the left hemisphere because it houses the language centers crucial for the actual production of speech (Wernicke and Broca's Areas). We get so caught up in the actual, sequential process of how speech is produced that we sometimes overlook how important our prior knowledge and emotions are when it comes to what we actually end up saying.
Pink states that the left hemisphere is sequential while the right hemisphere is simultaneous (p. 18). Therefore, the left hemisphere is used for things like reading, writing, and talking while the right hemisphere is used for things like interpreting facial expressions and reckognizing context and shaping how we say things. "The left hemisphere handles what is said; the right hemisphere focuses on how it's said-the nonverbal emotional cues delivered through gaze, facial expression, and intonation." So, without proper function of our right brain, we would be able to preform the task of speaking, however, there would be no augmentative elements to that speech. No intontation, no changing rates (prosody), no facial expressions or emotional reactions. The world would be very different without the right brain. But, without the left brain we wouldn't be able to talk at all. Both sides are crucial for adequate communication.

I can't help but draw a parallel here between this book and my speech classes again. I just find it fascinating. There is a great deal of emphasis on the left brain, however, during my fluency class (addresses theories for cause and possible therapy implementations for stuttering) we talked a great deal about the right brain. Many theories actually state that children stutter because of an over-activation of the right side of the brain and under-activation fo the left side of the brain. Therefore, when a child talks they experience delays in their speech (left side) and because of those delays their emotions heighten and interfere with further production until normal disfluencies in a child's speech develop over time into a disorder of stuttering. I think this is a perfect example of right and left brain function. Speech is considered to be housed in the left side of the brain and stuttering is considered a disorder of speech, however, this disorder is actually theorized to be caused by right brain activity. A disorder of the left side is caused by the emotions of the right side. Of course, no one knows the definite cause of stuttering and these are just theories, but how cool is that! Sorry if I have rambled, I'm sure not everyone is interested in speech disorders, but that theory is much more valid to me now.
Anyway, back to Pink. This is definately my favorite book so far. It applies to everyone and this complex topic is written in such simple terms. I also like the links he makes to society: Abundance, Asia, and Automation. "...the very triumph of L-Directed Thinking has lessened its significance (p. 33)." I absolutely love this ironic observation. The world is changing so fast and we need to change with it. We need to be more creative so we stand out in a crowd where everyone is the same and we need to use our right brain to do it. Our old sequential, book-learned skills are not enough to keep our jobs from traveling across seas to India and China. Computers will never be enough.

I was left with a lot of questions after reading Smart Mobs and throughout this course. We talk alot about dehumanizing and ask questions like, will computers take over? I think Pink is starting to answer those questions for me. I never really took into account, when asking these questions, the fact that we would continue to evolve. I also couldn't see where we could evolve to. However, we are taking what sets us apart from computers and technology, our right brain, and developing it, incorporating it into how we do business and how we communicate. Technology is continuing to evolve to the left while we are evolving to the right.