This could be the golden age of books about the brain.
Visit a bookstore or go online and you will find a dizzying selection of volumes exploring the role of the brain in work, relationships, creativity, emotions, personal fulfillment, and more. Neuroscientists, psychologists, life coaches, and others weigh in. Theories and insights are offered. Authors provide guidance about how to enhance your knowledge, skills, and abilities and how otherwise to improve your brain performance—with the promise of a better life, in one way or another.
So the question becomes: Why one more book about the brain?
Because this one is different.
Top Brain, Bottom Brain offers a new, defensible theory of brain functioning and psychology, based on a major anatomical distinction that is frequently overlooked. The “Theory of Cognitive Modes” that we present here is built on conclusions arising from decades of research that, for the most part, has remained inside scientific circles. A “cognitive mode” is a general way of thinking that underlies how a person approaches the world and interacts with other people. To our knowledge, this is the first time that these findings have been systematically brought to a mainstream audience.
We have learned a lot from mistakes of the past, in particular those whose origins can be traced to another way to organize the brain: into its left and right halves. Top Brain, Bottom Brain debunks this dominant mainstream brain story of the last half century, the story of the alleged great divide between the “analytical/logical” left and “artistic/intuitive” right halves of the human brain. Although the left and right halves of the brain do have some different functions, they are not those described in the commonly accepted story. In the service of not repeating the mistakes of the past, we briefly consider how this story came to be so broadly embraced by the popular culture—and why it is scientifically unsound. Our theory does not fall prey to the problems that beset this earlier one, in particular because we do not try to develop a simple black-and-white dichotomy to describe how large portions of the brain work. Rather, we emphasize the role of different systems that are implemented in different brain regions.
We intend this book to be accessible to the general reader, but we also hope that it will influence the scientific community. Since neuroimaging (also called brain scanning) burst onto the scene in the mid-1980s, many studies of the mind and brain have become noticeably less theory-oriented. Although neuroimaging is a valuable tool in modern neuroscience, it is not always used very effectively. Some researchers now simply ask people to perform a cognitive task (such as playing chess or thinking about a particular topic) while their brains are being scanned—and then see which parts of the brain become activated. This approach is radically different from the traditional one, in which the researcher tests specific theories. The traditional approach is important because science makes progress by devising increasingly better theories, and thus it is essential that theories be developed and evaluated. In this book, we seek to return to the hypothesis-driven tradition by proposing a new, plausible, and coherent theory that is strongly rooted in empirical findings.
We remind the reader at critical points that we are working with a theory, and that rigorous empirical tests of many key predictions have yet to be conducted. We hope that the reader will take the ideas we present as well-founded hypotheses that are worth considering, not as received truth. We also hope that this book will inspire a new round of studies that will further enrich our understanding of how the brain really works.
More than that, we hope that our Theory of Cognitive Modes will be an important contribution to understanding ourselves, as humans and as individual people. The theory we offer here should prompt you to think about issues you probably did not previously consider. Whether your interest is to evolve personally, socially, or in business—or all three—we believe that understanding and considering the Theory of Cognitive Modes can benefit you. We hope you find this book thought-provoking. May it lead you to useful insights about yourself and the people in your life.
To quote the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu: “He who knows others is learned / He who knows himself is wise.”
Stephen M. Kosslyn, PhD
San Francisco, California
G. Wayne Miller