johnm@uts.amdahl.com (John Murray) (03/21/89)
In article <338@lloyd.camex.uucp>, kent@lloyd.camex.uucp (Kent Borg) writes: > Go back a few years (to > when language was just becoming the biggest rage): did humans have any > need for the abstract concepts of left and right? Up and down, yes; > near and far, yes; bigger and smaller, yes; harder and softer, yes; > but left and right, I don't think so. A recent Usenet discussion (in some of the soc.culture.* groups, I think) bought to light an interesting correlation between left/right and points of the compass, which crops up in many languages. As I recall, the usual relationship is that the word for Left is the same or similar to the word for North, and/or Right corresponding to South (which is the case if one faces the rising sun). There are also some instances of Left/Right and West/East correspondence, I think, but none of East/West. This might seem to endorse the idea that abstract Left/Right concepts were not as necessary as indications of direction. However, there is also a traditional association of Left with evil or badness of some kind, which occurs in many cultures. I would think that abstract Good and Bad concepts are necessary everywhere. (The other association of Left with awkwardness or clumsiness may derive from left-handedness iteslf, rather than vice versa.) - John Murray, Amdahl Corp. (My own opinions, etc.)
cipher@mmm.UUCP (Andre Guirard) (04/25/89)
In article <338@lloyd.camex.uucp>, kent@lloyd.camex.uucp (Kent Borg) writes: > did humans have any need for the abstract concepts of left and right? I'm not at all convinced that the concept of left and right is very abstract. This suggests an interesting experiment... using various animals, test to see which ones can be trained to distinguish between left and right. If a dog can understand the concept, it's probably not too abstract. -- "Lalabalele talala! Callabele lalabalica falahle! | Andre Guirard Callamalala galalate! Caritalla lalabalee | cipher@3m.com kallalale poo!" | "Wake me up for | the good part."
dmark@cs.Buffalo.EDU (David Mark) (04/25/89)
In article <1256@mmm.UUCP> cipher@mmm.UUCP (Andre Guirard) writes: >In article <338@lloyd.camex.uucp>, kent@lloyd.camex.uucp (Kent Borg) writes: >> did humans have any need for the abstract concepts of left and right? > >I'm not at all convinced that the concept of left and right is very abstract. > >This suggests an interesting experiment... using various animals, >test to see which ones can be trained to distinguish between left >and right. If a dog can understand the concept, it's probably not too >abstract. I talked to a sheepdog owner/trainer about this very point. She said that they can train a dog to circle clockwise or counterclockwise around the sheep, on symbolic command (whistle sequences, or words). Apparently, the dogs have a 'natural' tendency to stay opposite their master (surrogate alpha-male?) when trying to control domestic (surrogate prey?) animals. So, if the trainer moves clockwise, so will the dog, and if they move counter clockwise, the dog does too. So, they induce the dogs behavior and give the associated command, until they learn the command. Martin Garnder, in "The Left Handed Universe", said that clockwiseness and handedness are equivalent concepts (i.e., given one, you can define the other), and called the general property "parity". Now, left-right is by far the least salient of our three orthogonal axes. Up-down dominates, and front-back is obvious. I think we have to be 'trained' on left-right, too, and that it is not as 'natural' as the others. I know I have trouble, and almost always have to think about it, and check my wrists for watches! David Mark, Geography dmark@cs.buffalo.edu
zwicky@pterodactyl.cis.ohio-state.edu (Elizabeth D Zwicky) (04/25/89)
In article <5463@cs.Buffalo.EDU> dmark@sunybcs.UUCP (David Mark) writes: >Now, left-right is by far the least salient of our three orthogonal axes. >Up-down dominates, and front-back is obvious. I think we have to be >'trained' on left-right, too, and that it is not as 'natural' as the others. >I know I have trouble, and almost always have to think about it, and check >my wrists for watches! How salient the left/right distinction is differs from person to person. The more strongly you have a dominant brain hemisphere, the easier it is to tell left from right. If you don't have a terribly dominant hemisphere, you may be strikingly unable to tell the difference (for instance, you may go into reverse instead of turning on your turn signals in a car with the shift on the steering column; take illegible phone messages by writing with the hand you don't know how to write with; and turn the volume on your TV all the way up when you wanted to turn it off, all of then things I have been known to do). On the other hand, if you have a clearly dominant hemisphere, you may be unable to think of a reason why one would be unable to tell them apart; they will simply seem intuitively different. This can lead to unfortunate consequences (quote from an operator here: "You mean there's a reason I can't tell left from right? My boyfriend just says I'm stupid!"). Women in general have less hemispheric dominance than men; people who are at all left-handed generally have less dominance than people who are right-handed. Observation leads me to believe that both linguists and computer scientists have a higher proportion of non-dominant people than the population at large, although I have no data on it, and the fact that multi-button mice are reasonably popular among computer scientists would seem to be a counter-argument. (The only saving grace about a Sun mouse is the Sun keyboard, which handily indicates right and left. People don't snicker as much as they do if you tape up a sign with right and left marked up on it.) Elizabeth Zwicky
thant@horus.SGI.COM (Thant Tessman) (04/26/89)
In article <1256@mmm.UUCP>, cipher@mmm.UUCP (Andre Guirard) writes: > In article <338@lloyd.camex.uucp>, kent@lloyd.camex.uucp (Kent Borg) writes: > > did humans have any need for the abstract concepts of left and right? > > I'm not at all convinced that the concept of left and right is very abstract. An interesting book is "The Origin of Consciousness Through the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind." Even if its main premise stretches things a bit, it does make the point that left versus right is much more "built in" than one would guess. thant@sgi.com
meadors@cogsci.ucsd.EDU (Tony Meadors) (04/26/89)
In article <5463@cs.Buffalo.EDU> dmark@sunybcs.UUCP (David Mark) writes: >In article <1256@mmm.UUCP> cipher@mmm.UUCP (Andre Guirard) writes: >>In article <338@lloyd.camex.uucp>,kent@lloyd.camex.uucp (Kent Borg) writes: >>> did humans have any need for the abstract concepts of left and right? >> >>I'm not at all convinced that the concept of >>left and right is very abstract. >>This suggests an interesting experiment... using various animals, >>test to see which ones can be trained to distinguish between left >>and right. If a dog can understand the concept, it's probably not too >>abstract. > >I talked to a sheepdog owner/trainer about this very point. She said that >they can train a dog to circle clockwise or counterclockwise around the >sheep, on symbolic command (whistle sequences, or words). Apparently, the >dogs have a 'natural' tendency to stay opposite their master (surrogate >alpha-male?) when trying to control domestic (surrogate prey?) animals. >So, if the trainer moves clockwise, so will the dog, and if they move >counter clockwise, the dog does too. So, they induce the dogs behavior and >give the associated command, until they learn the command. >David Mark, Geography >dmark@cs.buffalo.edu Nice example David. But I can't help think that animals circling on command "to their left" vs. "to their right" is possibly much different than possessing the "concept of handedness" or even "left vs right." Afterall, circling is for the sheepdog but a variation upon a well-practiced motor theme. What an animal "does" can be misleading of what it "knows." The TRANSFER of concept usage between situations is one method of testing whether an animal "really" has grasped a particular notion. For example, if some animal (a sheepdog let's say) could be shown to, upon command, always select from among alternatives the left or right one; whether using his legs to pursue, his paw to strike, or mouth to grab; and more importantly, could do so to novel sets of items, using novel motor patterns; THEN, I for one would be strongly persuaded that it UNDERSTOOD the opposing concepts of left and right. just a note, tonyM
greid@adobe.com (Glenn Reid) (04/26/89)
In article <1256@mmm.UUCP> cipher@mmm.UUCP (Andre Guirard) writes: >In article <338@lloyd.camex.uucp>, kent@lloyd.camex.uucp (Kent Borg) writes: >> did humans have any need for the abstract concepts of left and right? > >I'm not at all convinced that the concept of left and right is very abstract. > >This suggests an interesting experiment... using various animals, >test to see which ones can be trained to distinguish between left >and right. If a dog can understand the concept, it's probably not too >abstract. I taught my dog to shake hands with me. The command is "shake." At first, she would give me either paw, or both paws, but after a little bit of training consistently gives me her right paw. I don't know if this illustrates an understanding of right versus left. More likely it is positive- and negative-reinforcement at work. But hell, I'll bet that's how people learn left from right, too. I know lots of people who still don't know the difference without thinking about it. Glenn
mpp@uf.msc.umn.edu (Mike Pritchard) (04/27/89)
In article <784@adobe.UUCP> greid@adobe.COM (Glenn Reid) writes: >I taught my dog to shake hands with me. The command is "shake." At >first, she would give me either paw, or both paws, but after a little >bit of training consistently gives me her right paw. > >I don't know if this illustrates an understanding of right versus left. >More likely it is positive- and negative-reinforcement at work. But >hell, I'll bet that's how people learn left from right, too. I know >lots of people who still don't know the difference without thinking >about it. > >Glenn My dog always had a preference for his left paw (we used to say that he took after me, since I'm left handed :-). When I taught him to shake he would always give me his left paw. After a while I was able to get him To offer the right paw, but only after I indicated in some way that I wanted that paw, not the left (touching the right paw was usually enough). If he wanted some attention, was playing around, etc and decided to use his paws to do it, he would always wind up using his left paw. -- Mike Pritchard Internet: mpp@msc.umn.edu "If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried."
zwicky@pterodactyl.cis.ohio-state.edu (Elizabeth D Zwicky) (04/27/89)
In article <1256@mmm.UUCP> cipher@mmm.UUCP (Andre Guirard) writes: >This suggests an interesting experiment... using various animals, >test to see which ones can be trained to distinguish between left >and right. If a dog can understand the concept, it's probably not too >abstract. I don't know about dogs, but if you generalize about the abstractness of right/left from horses, you'll be in trouble. Horses know right from left very well; it is built into them. If you are training a horse, and it decides that some inanimate object on the track is a terrifying thing, you will have to train it out of this decision twice; once with the object on the left, once with the object on the right. In fact, everything you do on a horse must be done either both ways, or always the same way. (For instance, you train movements to both sides, but you don't train the horse to be mounted from either side; you just always mount it from its left, and who care what it knows about mounting from the right.) However, this shouldn't tell us anything about how abstract right/left is for humans, because this is primarily due to an important *neurological* difference between people and horses. Horses do not have a corpus callosum (the bundle of nerve fibers that in most mammals connect the two hemispheres of the brain). Although there is still communication between the hemispheres, it is small enough that for many purposes a horse effectively has two brains. There's no way for it not to make a right/left distinction; it *is* a right/left distinction. Since humans do have a corpus callosum, I can't see that data from horses are applicable. In fact, I'm not certain that I'm willing to take evidence from animals at all. Almost anything you can train at all can be trained to distinguish squares from triangles, but that doesn't make me think that "square", "triangle" and "shape" are not abstract concepts. Elizabeth
shf@well.UUCP (Stuart H. Ferguson) (04/27/89)
+-- meadors@cogsci.UUCP (Tony Meadors) writes: | In article <5463@cs.Buffalo.EDU> dmark@sunybcs.UUCP (David Mark) writes: | >In article <1256@mmm.UUCP> cipher@mmm.UUCP (Andre Guirard) writes: | >>This suggests an interesting experiment... using various animals, | >>test to see which ones can be trained to distinguish between left | >>and right. If a dog can understand the concept, it's probably not too | >>abstract. | [...] . But I can't help think that animals circling | on command "to their left" vs. "to their right" is possibly much | different than possessing the "concept of handedness" or even | "left vs right." I agree. I can, for example, be trained to drive on the right-hand side of the street, and I feel *very* uncomfortable driving on the other side (sweaty palms, visions of death, etc.). But if someone in the back seat says, "turn right," they had better point for me or we could end up anywhere. I imagine the situation could be similar for sheepdogs. -- Stuart Ferguson (shf@well.UUCP) Action by HAVOC
bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort) (05/04/89)
About 20% of the population suffers from some form of Dyslexia. Dyslexia refers to a collection of cognitive deficits ranging from left/right confusion, to difficulty in spelling and reading, to learning disabilities associated with sequential information processing and deductive reasoning. The disorder may be caused by a genetically inherited neurological dysfunction in a portion of the left cerebral cortex. Prior to the diagnosis of Dyslexia, many dyslexics suffered psychological stigmatization associated with inadequate academic performance in the affected areas. In extreme cases, learning anxieties and feelings of inferiority further exacerbated the situation, leading to maladaptive personality distortions and character disorders. Dyslexia is treatable, in the sense that the cognitive functions can still be developed in a suitably supportive setting and with the aid of computer-assisted learning laboratories. The left-hemisphere deficit is frequently counterbalanced by right-hemispheric strengths in spatial relations, music, drama, dance, and sensitivity to nonverbal information. --Barry Kort