The Right Mind: Making Sense of the Hemispheres

This is one of the few books that gets the brain hemispheres right. Starting with the most complete history I've seen of the issue, Dr. Ornstein tries to overcome the popular misconceptions about hemispheric differences. His description is based on the evidence he accumulated in his considerable experience. While this doesn't match or support much of what has been said in the popular press articles about the subject, it is valuable understanding of how the hemisphere's really work together.The problem with this book is that it was published in 1997 and hasn't been updated, as far as I know. Neuroscience has learned a lot about the hemispheres in the intervening 20 years, almost entirely supportive of what is written in the The Right Mind. Unfortunately, the mistaken popular ideas, summarized by the misleading phrase "left brain vs. right brain", has experienced a frightening backlash. Every attempt to correct the record on the hemispheres established by bad popular science writing is attacked by more bad popular science writing as misconceived.If you want to learn more after reading this book, read "The Master and His Emissary" by Iain McGilchrist (https://www.amazon.com/Master-His-Emissary-Divided-Western/dp/0300188374). I hope Robert Ornstein will step up to updating his book. In case he doesn't, I am working on a book myself.

Readers with previous experience with Ornstein's books may find The Right Mind the most interesting he's written. The view of brain through psychology offers a different approach about brain functions. For Beginners, this book may be quite useful. Though I read other book from Ornestein, I was expecting to find deep research on brain assymetry, which this book is poor, there's nothing you can't find over Internet on related sites. For intermeddiate readers on brain issue, this book may offer some interesting approaches, but too hard to get them between 200 pages. Instead, I would reccomend Carl Sagan's "Dragons of Eden", a marvelous and interesting book about brain development. Advanced readers won't like Ornstein for explaing brain lateralization, and a more appropriate book would be "Left brain, Right Brain", the only serious book written on this subject. Conclusion: Ornstein book is not that bad at all. If you like Oliver Sacks and psychological views of brain, this is indeed a good choice. Wrong Title though, coz it doesn't have much about brain lateralization itself (by the way, the book enphasizes the importance of both hemispheres working together - which is quite obvious when you want a scientific approach - but many people forget on daily life).

Gosh, I don't even remember this one, though Ornstein is a familiar author, whose work I've enjoyed. It's probably somewhere on my bookshelves.

A slim volume, a very readable and accessible (also in terms of price) discussion of the MindBrain and the two hemispheres. Includes interesting historical and bibliographical references(up to 1997) and considers implications for education. Still valuable, although if your interest is in the hemispheric perspective then there is no better recent work than that of Iain McGilchrist.

Intere sting, more prose than science .

like the book

Partly as a result of Ornstein's earlier book on the divided brain 25 years ago, the terms left and right brain have become part of of daily vocabularly. Even adverts talk about developing the right brain. Not surprisingly there are a lot of confusions on the topic as well. That's why Ornstein's return to the topic should be welcomed by anyone with an interest in the brain and how the mind works. He shows how the simple idea that people are either left or right brained is simply wrong but that the two work together in fascinating ways that we are only just beginning to understand. For a fine example of entertaining yet easy to understand science writing, turn to his section describing what is involved in understanding a joke and the different way patients who have lost the use of parts of their left or right brain respond to jokes. Other topics like dreams and schizophrenia also can be seen in a new light when seen from this interaction between the hemispheres. This is a lot shorter than Steve Pinker's latest work on the Mind and a lot more entertaininly written and contains many more fresh insights Jerome Burne, (London-based journalist specializing in psychology)

One of Robert Ornstein's great gifts is his ability to presentcomplicated historical and scientific material in a concise, lucid andentertaining fashion that lay readers like myself can understand and enjoy. THE RIGHT MIND embodies a daring shift in his paradigm for brain function from the 1970's, regarding the two hemispheres as complementary rather than dichotomous,the right providing the scaffolding and the left the building blocks. I was as startled and amazed when I read this book as I was when I read Ornstein's THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

Perfect

Interesting book that delves into the bilateral differences in brain morphology all the way back to the womb. Great read.