Cognitive Science and the New Testament A New Approach to Early Christian Research

relationships. At a more general level, it has been suggested that the right
hemisphere pays attention to detail whereas the left hemisphere to overall
patterns (Ornstein, 1997). Although popular psychology has made much of
the“dominance”of one of the hemispheres (also dubbed“brainedness”), such
whole-sale theories are not warranted by scientific evidence (Nielsen et al.,
2013; Kalat, 2016, p. 432).
Before paying attention to the main anatomical divisions of the cerebral
cortex, let us review a set of subcortical structures that are collectively known
as thelimbic system(Figure 3.3). This part of the brain was formerly referred
to as the“emotional brain,”which is perhaps a useful mnemonic cue but can
be misleading as it suggests a localization of functions that is incorrect. Unlike
the cerebral cortex, these structures are symmetric but not always separated
into left and right counterparts. At the center of the brain wefind the
thalamus, which is also called the“relay station”of the brain. For example,
the thalamus receives information from the senses (except smell) and forwards
them to the cerebral cortex (cf. England & Wakely, 2006, pp. 142–5). Below
the thalamus wefind thehypothalamus, which, beside other connections,
controls the secretion of hormones in the body by sending signals to the
pituitary gland below it (Dougherty, 2013). (The hormones of the pituitary
gland then regulate other hormonal glands of the body.) Another part of the
limbic system that has to be mentioned in this brief survey is theamygdala,
which is located pairwise further to the side of the brain and plays a crucial
role in experiencing, recognizing, and remembering emotions (Heberlein &
Adolphs, 2007; Eichenbaum, 2012, pp. 291–313; Ward, 2012, pp. 81–6; Kalat,

Primary motor cortex

Central sulcus

Primary somatosensory

cortex

PARIETAL LOBE

OCCIPITAL LOBE

Wernicke’s area

Auditory cortex

TEMPORAL LOBE

Broca’s area

Prefrontal cortex

FRONTAL LOBE

Figure 3.2.The cerebral cortex of the human brain: main divisions (capitals) and
selected regions (of the left hemisphere).

The Human Brain: A Guided Tour 55