Classroom seating and functional brain asymmetry

Further Investigation of the Relationship between Hypnotic Susceptibility and Classroom Seating

Three classrooms of students ( n = 98) were tested for hypnotic susceptibility, handedness, and seating preference in an attempt to replicate the relationship between classroom seating and hypnotic susceptibility reported in 1979 by Sackeim, Paulhus, and Weiman. No relationship between these variables emerged for males. For females the relationships were inconsistent across samples. Over-all these results constitute a failure to replicate previously reported findings. Theoretical implications for the relationship between hypnotic susceptibility and “hemisphericity” are briefly discussed.

Cognitive Styles of Thinking and Learning Part One

Theory and techniques for maximizing individual cognitive styles and enhancing integration of the two sides of the brain

Conception season and cerebral asymmetries among American baseball players: implications for the seasonal birth effect in schizophrenia

People with schizophrenia and children born with neural tube defects both tend to be conceived most often in May-June, about a month before the summer solstice, and least often in November-December, a month before the winter solstice. Such timings, coupled with evidence of cerebral asymmetry deficits in schizophrenia, and evidence that asymmetry development and neural tube closure represent concurrent fourth-embryonic-week processes both sensitive to oxidant stress, led us to the hypothesis that pro-oxidant sunlight actions capable of affecting the mother's blood could result in a peri-June peak of inhibition and a peri-December peak of facilitation of both processes. Here, using birth and hand preference data from baseball statistics, we tested the hypothesis's prediction that, as a group representing minimal cerebral lateralization, left-handed players would show the same conception rhythm as that observed in the above disorders. We found that not only strict left-handers (those both batting and throwing left) were most often conceived in May-June but that also strict right-handers and other players denoting more extreme levels of cerebral lateralization were most often conceived in November-December.

Cognitive and neuropsychological response asymmetries for adults on the left-right seating axis

Six studies of the relationship between classroom seating and information processing were conducted with adult subjects. Findings converged to support a hemisphericity-based explanation of effects with right-side-sitters more inclined to a response style associated with the right hemisphere--perhaps, less analytical or less cautious in responding (Experiments 1-4), more "artistic" (Experiment 5), and less lateralized (Experiment 6), and vice versa for left side sitters. First, using incidental memory tasks, subjects (N = 164) with a right side seating preference (i.e., to the speaker's left side) were found, in their test-taking behavior, to respond more positively to inaccurate distractor words (Experiments 1 and 2), particularly those with an ambiguous semantic reference (Experiment 3). For different levels of processing, seating location did not influence auditory memory (Experiments 1 and 2) but right side sitters showed enhanced visual memory for accurate words (Experiment 3). In a sample of 366 subjects, males selecting right side seating were less successful on multiple-choice test performance (Experiment 4), but there were no Side differences in test taking speed or review time. In a sample of 286 subjects (Experiment 5), personality measures on the Vocational Preference Inventory revealed right sitters scored higher on the "Artistic" scale and on femininity on the Masculine-Feminine scale. The final study (N = 90) revealed reduced dichotic processing on verbal tasks (digits and voiced CVs) for right side sitters. Implications are discussed.

Line bisecting as a predictor of personal optimism and desirability of risky behaviors

Our goal was to test whether current hemisphere predominance is a predictor of scores on standardized measures of personal optimism and preference for risk. In two between-subject experiments, current hemisphere predominance was measured by the direction and extent of line bisecting errors. Pearson correlations and median splits of the line bisecting errors showed significantly greater personal optimism and preference for risk with left hemisphere predominance. These results support previous research in which manipulation of hemisphere predominance produced similar effects on personal optimism in normal individuals and on risk taking in lesioned and normal samples. We conclude that the association of optimism and risk with left hemisphere predominance can be observed in resting as well as in manipulated situations.

Relationship between conjugate lateral eye movements, brain organization, and cognitive style

The relationship between individual differences in conjugate lateral eye movements (CLEMs) and inferential reasoning was investigated in two experiments. Subjects were given inference tasks in sentence and pictorial form and were later tested for recognition of correct inferences as well as literal recognition of the acquisition items. In Experiment 2, for example, subjects were given logical syllogisms during acquisition. Theoretically, right-eye movement/left-hemispheric (REM/LH) subjects should have excelled at this highly logical task but no significant differences between eye-movement groups were found. However, support for previous research showing the moderating effects of gender on hemispheric activation (measured by CLEMs) and hemispheric competence came from the memory data of Experiment 2. These data indicated that male REM/LH subjects recognized more acquisition sentences than the other eye movement/gender groups. It was suggested CLEMs and other measures of hemispheric activation and competence, coupled with data collected using complex cognitive tasks, can eventually lead to explanatory brain models of cognitive processing.

Hemisphere asymmetries, spelling ability, and classroom seating in fourth graders

Fourth grade children (N = 159) from eight classes who were free to select their seating location in the classroom were tested for spelling ability. On 100 word spelling lists, the children (males and females) seated on the right side of the classroom (facing the teacher) were superior to children on the left. Analysis of spelling errors for reliance on phonological processing in a subsample (N = 28) revealed that right sitters made more phonetically inaccurate misspellings, whereas, on the left, females, but not males, committed more phonetically accurate misspellings. The results support the view that hemispheric information processing is correlated with classroom seating location or preference, but casual inferences regarding the neuropsychological mechanisms underlying these findings are unwarranted pending clarification of several major theoretical issues.

Hemisphericity, locus of control, and grade point average among middle and high school boys and girls

The Learning Style Questionnaire and the Children's Nowicki-Strickland I-E Control Scale were given to 128 boys and girls in Grades 8 and 11 in the La Grande (Oregon) School District. Each subject's previous year's grade point average was obtained to determine the relationships among hemisphericity, locus of control, and achievement. Also assessed, including interactions, were differences in hemisphericity, locus of control, and achievement by sex and grade. There was a significant relationship (of low practical value) between locus of control and GPA only. The difference in hemisphericity scores with respect to grade was significant.

Seating preference, hypnotizability, and imagery ability

The effects of a specific hemispheric mode of functioning as indexed by lateralized seating preference was tested separately for male and female subjects in terms of their performance on the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotid Susceptibility, Form A, the Creative Imagination Scale, and Betts' Questionnaire Upon Mental Imagery. Males, but not females, who preferred right-side seating scored higher on the Harvard scale but not on the Creative Imagination Scale or Betts' imagery questionnaire. Findings provide some support the notion that hypnotizability is associated with the right hemisphere for right-handed persons.