Page 212 - Mind Games The Aging Brain and How to Keep it Healthy

196 • Chapter 6

When a cup was exhibited in the right visual field, the
image was transmitted to N.G.’s left hemisphere and recog-
nized. Because her verbal ability was in that side of the cor-
tex, N.G. stated that she saw a cup. When a spoon was
exhibited to her left eye, and the image was transmitted to
the right hemisphere, N.G. could not verbalize the name
“spoon.” Instead, she could choose a spoon from a number
of available objects with her left hand. The right brain iden-
tified the image to the left hand, but without the verbal abil-
ities of the left hemisphere, N.G. could not name it. When
shown a naked woman on the left side of the screen, N.G.
blushed and laughed behind her hand. But when asked
what she had seen, she said she had seen a flash of light.
Again, she could not correctly verbalize her stimulus, but
the right hemisphere recognized the image and reacted
emotionally.
An acquaintance, a male engineer, had a stroke in the
corpus callosum. Thus, he had trouble passing information
from one hemisphere to another, as did N.G. With his emo-
tions on one side and his math and language skills on the
other, he had no trouble counting to 100 but could not an-
swer the question “How do you feel?”
If you are dealing with the effects of a stroke, and one
method does not produce improvement or recognition,
keep trying other methods. If the person cannot talk, try
writing. Perhaps they can sing, instead. Try presenting in-
formation from the other side or to the other hand.

Alzheimer’s Disease
Interestingly (in a rather sad way), a research study reported
that how we view forgetfulness depends on how old the
person is that forgot the information. Both older and
younger adults view forgetfulness in an older adult as a sign
of senility. The same degree of forgetfulness in a younger
person is considered just due to bad luck by both older and
younger adult observers. A bumper sticker reads “You are
never wrong until someone is listening.” Isn’t it a shame
that we do not listen to how often we are correct and how