The Two Halves of the Brain: Information Processing in the Cerebral Hemispheres

Hemispheric asymmetry is one of the basic aspects of perception and cognitive processing. The different functions of the left and right hemispheres of the brain have been studied with renewed interest in recent years, as scholars explore applications to new areas, new measuring techniques, and new theoretical approaches. 

Tone of Voice and Mind is a synthesis of findings from neurophysiology (how neurons produce subjective feeling), neuropsychology (how the human cerebral hemispheres undertake complementary information-processing), intonation studies (how the emotions are encoded in the tone of voice), and music perception (how human beings hear and feel harmony). The focus is on the psychological characteristics that distinguish us from other primate species. At a neuronal level, we are just another mammalian species, but the functional specialization of the human cerebral hemispheres has resulted in three outstanding, uniquely-human talents: language, tool-usage and music. To understand how the human brain coordinates those behaviors is to understand who we are.