Hemispheric Laterality and Cognitive Style Associated With Transcendental Meditation

Abstract

ABSTRACT The hemispheres of the brain are thought to be specialized with respect to the manner in which they process information. In view of this it is possible to explore the way information is processed during the performance of a specified task by identifying the relative activity of the hemispheres. The hypothesis, that meditation is characterized by a gestalt, holistic and spacial cognitive style associated with the right hemisphere was tested. Sixteen Transcendental Meditators were compared to 16 control subjects with respect to the degree of lateral asymmetry during meditation‐relaxation and the performance of two analytic and two spacial cognitive tasks. Lateral asymmetry was assessed by the relative distribution of alpha activity. The only difference between the two groups was that meditators showed a greater degree of lateral asymmetry on both analytical and spacial tasks. During both meditation and relaxation the hemispheres were found to be symmetrical with respect to the distribution of alpha activity, suggesting that neither analytical nor spacial processing was dominant during these exercises.