Cultural differences in hemisphericity: a critique.

Abstract

A series of four articles on the "other side" of the brain has been published in this journal by Dr. Joseph Bogen and his colleagues (1, 2, 3, 4). The first three of these are rapidly becoming minor classics for those of us interested in hemispheric specialization. However, the fourth article reports a combination of sociologic and neurologic observations which, in our opinion, are misinterpreted. This misinterpretation stems primarily from the use of inappropriate statistical procedures and the misleading characteristics of a variable which is comprised of a ratio of two other variables (i.e. the A/P ratio). In short, we argue that the sociologic data presented (4) are not consistent with the constant sum model of hemisphericity discussed in that paper. An alternative model is discussed.