Seasons
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Posts 5,839 - 5,850 of 6,170
That's good fun but I don't think it has anything to do with left/right brain stuff....
Well, the jury's still out on exactly what qualities match with what lateralization (manual or cognitive,) but statistical analysis of the fields that differently handed people end up studying or working in suggest there are significant differences, and their brains scan differently under MRI (http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=main.doiLanding&uid=2006-20657-008 .) Whether these differences are congenital (http://anthropology.net/2007/08/01/lrrtm1-a-possible-gene-for-left-handedness/ - we're genetically different,) or learned (http://drmeals.homestead.com/files/lefties_in_a_right_hand_world.pdf - we have to learn to cope in a predominantly right-handed world,) is still a little uncertain (I think probably a bit of both.)
A few more footnote references (as ever,) courtesy of Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laterality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-handed#Possible_effects_in_humans_on_thinking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness#Brain_hemisphere_division_of_labor
Posts 5,839 - 5,850 of 6,170
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IRINA KHALIDAR BOT CONTEST
!!!!
The size or degree of development of your bot will not be a factor!I
It will not be in any way a Turing Test!
The number of facts your bot knows will not be a factor!
Bots will be evaluated as works of art!
To enter, send your bot's downloaded language center to
Irina_Khalidar@yahoo.com
with a cover note drawing my attention to any particularly felicitous feats of programming that it may contain.
Your bot should also be available for dialogue at the Forge or elsewhere.
Deadline for submission is midnight, January 1, 2009!
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Right brain or left? My whole family sees the dancer go both ways. I seem stuck in my right brain.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,023739,22556678-23272,00.html
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,023739,22556678-23272,00.html
that's fascinating! For the first few minutes, although I'm familiar with the nature of the illusion, I could only see it rotating stubbornly clockwise.
Now I can force my perception to see it rotating anti-clockwise if I focus on just the dancer's head and relax my eyes while concentrating on imposing an imagined a-c rotation on it (like a whirlwind, if that makes any sense.)
And then I can scope back out to see the whole figure rotating a-c, but clockwise tends to kick back in as soon as my concentration falters. It's surprisingly hard work, so I guess I'm very right-brained.
I'm strongly left-handed/footed/eyed, so that's pretty much as I would have predicted. Fun to try it out though
Prob, are you and your family right/left-handed or ambidextrous?
Now I can force my perception to see it rotating anti-clockwise if I focus on just the dancer's head and relax my eyes while concentrating on imposing an imagined a-c rotation on it (like a whirlwind, if that makes any sense.)
And then I can scope back out to see the whole figure rotating a-c, but clockwise tends to kick back in as soon as my concentration falters. It's surprisingly hard work, so I guess I'm very right-brained.
I'm strongly left-handed/footed/eyed, so that's pretty much as I would have predicted. Fun to try it out though
Prob, are you and your family right/left-handed or ambidextrous?
I am right handed. It seems odd I am in my right brain??? Oh, the endless possibles for a punch line. I did find that if I laid down, it would go counter clockwise. Other family members are mostly right handed with one lefty in the group.
AH! I can change her direction by staring at her feet.
AH! I can change her direction by staring at her feet.
Well, the jury's still out on exactly what qualities match with what lateralization (manual or cognitive,) but statistical analysis of the fields that differently handed people end up studying or working in suggest there are significant differences, and their brains scan differently under MRI (
A few more footnote references (as ever,) courtesy of Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laterality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-handed#Possible_effects_in_humans_on_thinking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness#Brain_hemisphere_division_of_labor
Very interesting. I have always wondered about the difference between people that are completely left handed and those that write with their left but use right handed scissors, bows etc.
Oh yes, of course left-handed people are better (I am one too) - or more seriously handedness might have other implications for the brain, I'm sure it does. I'm just not sure that which way you see the dancer spinning is related to any of it! But I suppose it's a good starting point for talking about this stuff.
Very cool illusion Prob! But I agree there is lots of confusion over "left brain" and "right brain" thinking and this illusion probably has little to do with such thinking styles. Also, left handedness or right handedness has little to do with the thinking/learning styles theory. Frankly, I tend to think that the conclusions most people try to draw from the research on the topic are overgeneralized and fail to account for things like plasticity and variations within each group. There are some differences in how neural processes develop, and a certain amount of how the brain determines which processes map to which areas of the brain appears to be genetic. All the same, given the evidene that we grow more neurons for those neural netwroks we use and prune out neurons in "dead" processes we don't use, I think these structural differences have less effect on our overall thinking and capacity for various skills and intelligences than some suggest. In case you can't tell, I prefer the whole brain learning theories.
Most people use all of their brains (baring disorders or injury) and we have various levels of capacity and ability in many types of intelligences. Therefore I can be right handed (controlled by the left side of my brain), artistic, logical and do well with both words and symbols while having processing issues leading to dysgraphia and problems with visualizing and manipulating spatial relationships (leading my old driver instructor to take a lot of Tums). There seems to be a combination of genetic patterns and environmental learning factors effecting how my neural nets develop but nothing that will make my learning style fit nicely into a box like some astrological sign. (Forgive the rant. I have often been in a position where someone hires a consultant to spew bad science at teachers in the name of maintaining educational standards, and I have privately thought that most things labeled "educational research" are neither educational nor good research.)
I find it interesting how the various processes within neural nets have a lot of potential for improving AI (yes I am back to "learning" AI). There is more to it than simply statistics or various types of memory attached to specific input. A friend of mine recently mentioned the DARPA (http://www.darpa.mil/) challenge to build driverless cars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Urban_Challenge) and how the participants in that contest have moved into using various types of learning AI. What it says about how we can use "neural nets" in programming is very thought provoking.
Most people use all of their brains (baring disorders or injury) and we have various levels of capacity and ability in many types of intelligences. Therefore I can be right handed (controlled by the left side of my brain), artistic, logical and do well with both words and symbols while having processing issues leading to dysgraphia and problems with visualizing and manipulating spatial relationships (leading my old driver instructor to take a lot of Tums). There seems to be a combination of genetic patterns and environmental learning factors effecting how my neural nets develop but nothing that will make my learning style fit nicely into a box like some astrological sign. (Forgive the rant. I have often been in a position where someone hires a consultant to spew bad science at teachers in the name of maintaining educational standards, and I have privately thought that most things labeled "educational research" are neither educational nor good research.)
I find it interesting how the various processes within neural nets have a lot of potential for improving AI (yes I am back to "learning" AI). There is more to it than simply statistics or various types of memory attached to specific input. A friend of mine recently mentioned the DARPA (http://www.darpa.mil/) challenge to build driverless cars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Urban_Challenge) and how the participants in that contest have moved into using various types of learning AI. What it says about how we can use "neural nets" in programming is very thought provoking.
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