Selective Lateralization of Cognitive Style Related to Occupation as Determined by EEG Alpha Asymmetry

Abstract

This study reports a frequency analysis of hemispheric EEG asymmetries in 14 right‐handed male subjects performing two cognitive tasks. Eight of the subjects were Presidents or Chief Operating Officers of large corporations and the 6 remaining subjects were Operations Researchers. For the Operations Researchers, language and analytic tasks were expected to engage primarily the left hemisphere; spatial and intuitive tasks were expected to engage primarily the right hemisphere, consistent with earlier findings with normal subjects. The Presidents were expected to engage primarily the right hemisphere independent of cognitive task. Recordings from temporal leads (T3, T4) referred to the vertex CZ were subjected to discrete Fourier transforms; ratios of power from homologous leads (T4/T3) were computed in the alpha band. The results support the expectation of different responses between the two occupational groups. The lack of communication and understanding between the two occupational groups and the general lack of utilization and implementation of operations research by corporations may he inferred to be partially related to these differences.

Cognitive Style and its Relevance for Management Practice

“…Robey and Taggart cite a study reported by Doktor (1978) and Doktor and Bloom (1977) to demonstrate the link between information processing and neuroIogica1 activity. Alpha waves were monitored when business executives and operations research analysts worked on two sets of problems.…”

Evolutionary Neuroandrogenic Theory and Universal Gender Differences in Cognition and Behavior

“…Other occupations that should attract large proportions of persons with rightward shifted brains would be top positions in politics and business (Doktor and Bloom 1977). Not only should a brain that is rightward shifted think more comprehensively, it should function in ways that transcend interpersonal relationships, thereby resulting in males being less "person-centered" and more "task-focused" in their management styles.…”

Cognitive and gender factors influencing navigation in a virtual environment

“…The observation that verbal-sequential participants showed even greater asymmetry in the high-frequency band, in the face of similar navigational knowledge, than visual-spatial participants, can be taken as evidence of greater (compensatory) cognitive e!ort, or access to right hemisphere resources, to learn the VE. Di!erences in EEG asymmetry have been found to di!erentiate cognitive style (Doktor & Bloom, 1977) or cognitive mode (Galin & Ornstein, 1972) and thus di!erences in hemispheric activation may characterize problem-solving strategies during many tasks, including spatial navigation. T3}T4 comparisons have often been found to show this e!ect and this was the case in Experiment 5 (see Figure 7).…”