A

226 A Programmer’s Guide to the Mind

Damage of the right parietal lobe can also cause another condition
known as hemispatial neglect, in which a person ignores the left half of his
world. Why the left half? Because, according to neurology, the right half of
the environment is still
being monitored by the
backup system of the left
parietal lobe. A Being
analytic, it is not as good
at spatial analysis as its
counterpart in the right
hemisphere, but it does the
best that it can.
“For example, a patient
with a right parietal lesion
may neglect food on the
inattended left side of a plate and fail to copy the parts of a drawing that
are on its left side. When asked to describe and interpret a picture, he may
fail to report the details present on the left side. Similarly, the left half of a
sentence or word may also be neglected, making him unable to read for
comprehension. Moreover, when asked to bisect a visually perceived line,
he may place his mark far to the right because he has not attended to the
left side...Spatial inattention may also affect the body image so that body
parts in inattended „personal space‟ are either totally ignored or felt to be
foreign.” 11 Notice how one portion of the brain—automatic Perceiver
thought—handles spatial attention in areas as diverse as speech, vision,
writing, and body parts.
Notice also how the memories themselves are still present within the
mind, but the ability to pay attention to them is lacking. This distinction
was brought out clearly when researchers “asked patients with right
posterior hemisphere lesions to describe a recalled scene of a familiar city
square. When patients imagined they were standing at one end of the
square, they tended to not report details on the left of the square. Yet when
they imagined themselves at the other end of the square, facing their
original position, they tended to omit details on the new left side.” 11
While automatic Perceiver thought contains the raw material of self-
image, I suggest that it is the Perceiver internal world which gives stability
to the mental concept of me. If this internal structure is inadequate, then
one would predict that me would become unstable, driven by the latest
defining experiences, and unable to maintain its shape for any length of
time.B

A Remember that each hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body.

B Personal fragmentation seems to be a significant factor in schizophrenia.

The schizophrenic individual enters fully into emotional flights of fancy. In

Right

Parietal

Lobe

Right

Superior

Frontal Cortex