Things I’ve learned from my degree: Part 1 (12/02/2022)
An online diary capturing my attempts to convince myself that learning is taking place in my yearly 9k investments otherwise known as a Bachelors of Science degree.
In learning more about the cognitive idiosyncrasies of language in the human being, it has been made known to me that the left hemisphere of the brain is the dominant mediator of spoken language. Makes sense, right? I mean, I knew that you knew that. Let’s move on. So, at this point, we know what the role of the left hemisphere is in spoken language, thanks to years of cognitive neuroscience, we know how, thanks to Broca and Wernicke and we know why, thanks to Tan, and a phenomenon known as Wernicke’s aphasia (there are tons of Youtube videos about this, it’s really interesting). But, what I didn’t quite know was what this meant for the other half of the brain- the right hemisphere- the more creative, more emotional twin of the left hemisphere. If the brain requires both hemispheres to work together in perfect synchronicity to do almost everything, what does the right hemisphere do in the context of spoken language and communication? Is it important?
Well, to make a long, possibly boring, story short ‘the left hemisphere talks, while the right hemisphere listens’. That encapsulates the bulk of what I had learned from that lecture. As I progress into this series of writing pointless articles attempting to substantiate my degree as more than a colossal waste of time, you will learn a little more about how I learn. And in essence, it’s me compressing long arduous lectures into a simple sentence no more than a line long to prove to myself, and the burning tower that is the education system in this country, that over-complicating simple phenomena does not convey competence or intelligence. In fact, it conveys everything but. If you cannot teach what you know, you barely know it at all.
Anyway! Back to social communication and the twins that is the left and right hemisphere. So we know, the left hemisphere is so heavily implicated in speech production and comprehension, but back to what I said earlier, what does it mean if you can talk and listen but not really listen? By this, I mean sure, it’s all well and good to be able to talk, read, and be listen objectively (very good on you for reading this whatever-this-is, but let’s see if you can answer the incoming question correctly- that’s the true test), but what does it mean if you can’t read between the lines? Your mate tell you they’re fine but they’ve lost themselves in a bag of Doritos for the third time today and sporadically explode into fits of tears for no apparent reason, but you know, they’ve said they’re fine. So, they’re fine right? (Did you pass the test?) Well, if you navigate life only listening to words independent of context, tone, cues, or anything else to contradict the words said by any given person, I’m afraid this will not fare well for you in most, if not all, social situations. This is where the right hemisphere comes in.
Remember when I said ‘the left hemisphere talks and the right hemisphere listens’? Well, cognitively (the neuroscience equivalent to ‘technically’ I’ve decided), the left hemisphere does most of the talking and listening. Okay, so what did you mean by that Feyin? Think of it this way, if all human beings did was talk, listen, and respond to the words of other people, that would make us a little robotic. The digital world before the introduction of digital emoticons (thanks Shigetaka Kurita), was a little robotic. But unlike what it is today, the digital world did not constitute for the majority of social interaction among humans (forgetting the conditions forced upon us by the p world we do not speak of)- real-life interactions did. And with real-life interactions or face-to-face (FtF) communication as psychologists refer to it, there are a bundle of things that influence how we interpret verbal language. Think of how one presents themselves, the context in which a verbal statement has been said, think attitude, tone, intention, and so forth- all of these factors themselves can completely contradict the validity of anything said verbally. And if we completely dismiss these social factors that precede verbal statements, we dismiss up to 80% of the meaning or intention behind a given verbal message.
Said wonderfully and ever so simply by this article I read just before writing this essay, ‘the message that is perceived never depends solely on what is said, but always on how it is said too’ and it’s just so true. To supplement this truth, two psychologists found that people with right hemispheric lesions had greater difficulties with identifying emotion, sarcasm, and metaphors in speech and this are one of many, many studies (and I mean many, I literally just ip-dip-dooed this one from a reading list) to implicate the role of the right hemisphere in perspective, and context- taking in understanding verbal anythings. So, while the left hemisphere talks, the right hemisphere listens for the cues that precede any given social situation which in turn, dictates what we say, how we say it, and how we perceive a given situation.
All in all, it can be said that the left and right hemispheres are both important for social cognition. What good would it be if we couldn't understand jokes or metaphors, or worse of all, our loved ones’ ‘i’m fine’ speech while engaging in some ‘not fine’ behaviours. That would make both hemispheres pretty important for communication, no one more important than the other, I think. (Don’t hold me to this, I am very mercurial and likely to change my mind in the face of new information at any given time)
I guess I did learn something from my degree today. Perhaps not in a way that will be useful for my exam. Nonetheless, I learned something, and that’s what’s important… Right?
