Learning styles and neuroanatomy of brain hemispheres

Learning Styles and Neuroanatomy of the Left & Right Hemispheres of the Brain

This is a paper concerning learning styles and the right/left hemispheres. How do these affect the higher order visual processing?

NEUROANATOMY OF THE BRAIN AND LEARNING STYLES

The human brain is mind puzzling when you think of all the intimate parts and how they affect learning. The study of Neuroanatomy of the brain and learning styles helps individuals to try to understand their individual dominance in right/left hemisphere.

The Brain

The human brain consists of over one hundred billion nerve cells. This is "organized into a system of sense, process, store, information received from both the external environment and from internal factors" (Winkley 1999). The brain is a complicated muscle that makes the individual what he is. The brain is the key organ of learning. Ronald Savage, Ed.D. says, "All that we do, all that we are, emanates from our brain" (2002).

Study of the Right and Left Hemisphere

Researchers have studied the fibers in the left and right hemispheres by severing nerve fibers in them. Christie (2000) says the following information was found in their study:

Expressive and receptive language, reasoning, and sequencing are found in the left hemisphere."

Geometric figures, visual forms, and facial identity are located in the right hemisphere."

The right hemisphere is not non-verbal, but once speech has been lateralized the left hemispheric dominance for language occurs."

95% of right-handed people have left hemisphere dominance, while 70% of all others still maintain left hemisphere dominance for Language Processing. This is indicative of cerebral hemispheric dominance" (328).

Remember that left sensory and motor activities come from the opposite hemisphere in the brain.

Learning styles

When the visual field so the right or left fixation point can be perceived at one time this is half-visual field. The dominant side is stimulated (occipital lobe excitation). When the half visual field is limited, learning can be accomplished by the individual's learning style. A learner can have mixed dominance, not dominant in left or right hemisphere, which can lead to learning difficulties. An individual can have dominance in the wrong hemisphere that creates problems. An example of this can be found when the individual's dominance is localized in the right hemisphere (the non-language hemisphere) causing problems in the language process (Christie 2000).

Review of Literature

Seiji Nagae in the article, "Handedness and Cerebral Hemispheric Differences in Memory for Pictorial Organization" writes about the hemispheric specialization studies of the brain. He discusses the stages of the processing model written by Moscovitch in 1979. He states that the early stages of processing involve the extraction of physical and sensory stiumuli are similar in both hemispheres of the brain. The differences in the hemispheres come at a later stage, and will be connected with the processing capabilities of each hemisphere. The transformations of the input processes are retained in the hemisphere by specific codes. What another researcher had investigated is the hemispheric asymmetries in long-term memory in a hemified paradigm. The results of his study revealed no differences in accuracy between the left and right visual fields and pictorial organization.

Another researcher found that verbalized pictures were dominant in the right visual field (left hemisphere) because of the left-hemisphere specialized in language production. Nagae says that more research needs to be done before making any decisions. Nagae states that the right-handers store and processes verbal and spatial information in different processing systems. Left-handers have more problems in processing verbal and spatial information.

Method used by Nagae

Nague (1994) took twenty-six male students in the Fukuoka University of Education in Japan to do his study. Thirteen of these students were right-handed and 13 of them were left-handers. Nagae used the Annett's Assessment of Handedness questionnaire to assess the handedness of his subjects. Approximately twelve of the questions asked which hand the subjects used most. Each question was assigned one point.

The stimuli were eight drawings of organized or unorganized scenes. Recognition memory was tested with two different probes. There were 64 trials, 32 single details, and 32 whole scenes. The experiment was conducted in two stages.

Learning stages of experiment series of 16 pictures were presented at the center of vision for 5 minutes per minute. The organized and unorganized pictures were arranged in random order. Subjects were asked to scan each picture. Each subject was given 16 exposures of the picture in which they were to learn (Nagae 1994).

Next game the VHF recognition test. Each subject was given a visual half-field recognition test. The task was to press yes or no button with the index finger to indicate whether the probes were part of the remembered series of pictures. The correct response was scored in two ways: the correct positive response or the correct negative response.

Results of the experiment

The results for positive-response did not show that the organized pictures were faster in the left visual field than in the right. It was not clear whether the left visual field between latencies was organized vs. The unorganized pictures. Three findings were of interest in this experiment. The Organization x Probe indicated that the difference in correct recognition for detail and whole scenes was greater in response to detailed probes than in the whole-scene probe.

Nagae's (1994) findings were similar to Zeidel's earlier study. What a person perceives is affected by the schema input. The detail probes were equally as strong in the partial, but the whole scene probes were stronger in the organized pictures than the unorganized pictures.

Hypothesis

The importance of further review with pictures and students concerning the visual processing is important to help teachers, administrators, school counselors, and others to use the knowledge concerning the right and left hemisphere.

Second review of literature

Isadore Sonnier (1991) in the article, "Hemisphericity: A Key to Understanding Individual Differences Among Teachers and Learners" states that the hemisphericity may be a major contributor to individual differences among people. She feels strongly that the understanding of individual differences among teachers and students may open doors to greater knowledge and ability to teach or learn. She states that the whole person is served when students are taught with consideration to the hemispheric preferences.

Hemispericity is the term implying 'the intriguing possibility that individuals have a tendency to one hemisphere and its mode of thought than the other" (Sonnier 1991). At one time the left hemisphere was dominated the major hemisphere, but research has shown that this is not true. Many refuse to consider hemispericity at all. "Perhaps we are short-changing ourselves when we educate only left-sided talents in schooling" (Sonnier 1991).

Hypothesis

Besides personality or environmental factors, hemisphericity is probably the key factor in understanding the dichotomy of individual differences in both teachers and students. The truth often has more than one side so further research on hemisphericity is needed.

Third review of literature

Amany Saleh gives information about her view of brain hemisphericity in the article, "Brain Hemisphericity and Academic Majors: A Correlation Study" (2001). The participants in this research project were 429 graduate and undergraduate students in a large university. The research focus was on academic majors and hemisphericity. Art/literature students had the tendency to be right hemisphere, while students majoring in education, commerce, engineering, and science were left hemisphere. Understanding brain behavior as it relates to learning styles is important to the field of education. Hemisphericity influences learning and personality characteristics. The result of the research paper should help teachers, school counselors, and others in understanding student's interests and abilities.

Methodology of the study

The students in Saleh's research came from a large university. 402 undergraduate students and 27 graduate students were picked. The number of females was twice that of males. The students were given the McCarthy's Hemispheric Mode Indicator (HMI) to determine the dominant hemispheres of the students. The instrument has 32 items with each item consisting of a continuum between two adjectives.

There were 124 left-brain dominants and 107 right-brain dominant students. 198 were whole-brain dominant that includes students with weak-preferences to the left or right hemisphere and students who can be defined as whole brain hemisphericity. There were a definite difference between art/literature majors and business majors. There were a significant difference between the education majors and business majors. Students in education had the tendency to be right-hemispheric dominant. The business students had the tendency to be left-dominance.

Hypotheses

Further research is needed concerning hemisphericity. The ability to help students based on right and left hemispheres will open doors for teachers, school counselors, and others to be able to help students develop at their best pace. The result of this study and further research might help teachers become aware of the different learning styles.

Fourth review of literature

James McCluskey and Thomas Paris discusses the study of cognitive skills and left/right brain dominancy in the article, "A Comparative Study of Cognitive Skills in Learning Hypercard by Right-Brain Dominant, Left-Brain Dominant and Mixed-Brain Dominant Students" (1993). The undergraduate students in this study were determined whether they were right/left hemisphere dominant or mixed hemisphere dominant. The students were taught to make HyperCard Stacks.

Methodology of the study

In this study students were instructed to make a fist with their thumb pointing upward at an arms length away. Once they lined up with the target, they were asked to close their left eye and decide if it was still on target. Once they did this, they were asked to line up their thumbs on target and asked to close their right eye. Which eye was closest to target?

They divided the students into right/left and mixed dominant sections. The students were then told how to do create a hypercard. The assignment was to create a sales presentation to an imaginary client. They were asked to indicate their right/left or mixed brain dominancy.

Learning Syles-10

The findings demonstrated the right-brain dominant individuals outperformed the left-brain and mixed-brain dominant students. "These findings run counter to the notion that analytically-oriented left-brain individuals should do better at cognitively-oriented computer tasks than individuals who are either right-brain or mixed-brain dominant" (McCluskey and Parish 1993).

Hypothesis

The conclusions are speculative because of the small size of the study. Perhaps a larger study might reveal true accuracy of the information. More research is needed concerning the right/left and mixed dominant individuals. This information would benefit both educational professionals and administrators.

Conclusion

Research is important in this study of the left/right hemispheres. It is important to remember that the brain is a muscle and develops through use. The use of neural pathways is important because brain cells that are not used will die (Winkley 1999). The more research completed on this subject the better the possibilities of helping students to perform to their full potential.

The earlier the student experiences the impact learning of the right/left hemisphere the better for the student. Parents that recognize their child's hemisphere dominancy will be able to direct their child to strengthen their dominancy and have clearer understanding of their child.

Teachers can assist in helping the parents to understand their children's minds. As the teacher and parent work together the child will be nurtured.

Questions arose concerning the implications of this knowledge in the mainstream schooling and curriculum. The more of a multidimensional curriculum used in developing lesson plans the better for students and teachers. Evidence suggests that achievement in one sensory area reinforces the success in others. "There is, additionally, research evidence to show that children who are taught to think in general ways tend to become better at a whole range of school subjects" (Winkley 1999). Another area is the emotional needs of children. The importance of students being able to control their emotional needs in the classroom may be helped by knowing the right or left hemisphere of a child. There is a link that shows emotional balance and future career success is considerable to the academic success.

Schools that develop positive balanced learning will find knowing about the right and left hemisphere will help develop the best programs for their students. "What actually matters is the quality of the interpretative act of teaching in linking the mind of the teacher with the mind of the pupil" (Winkley 1999). Further research will open doors to a variety of teaching methods based on the right and left hemispheres learning styles.