Re: Is "mind mapping" "right-brained"?

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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 3026

Posted by srdiamond15
2005-03-24 19:58:23

>As far as I have understood Tony Buzan’s books his premise goes something like this: _everyone_ can benefit from using visualising tools, though not everyone will benefit in the same way.

>Right-brain people are usually in a disadvantage within an educational system that only provides linear input. Mind Map note_taking_ can provide the extra dimensions their mind can more easily grasp, record and remember.

>Left-brain people, on the other hand, can augment their abstract thinking through a bird’s eye view of their information.- Alex

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This might bear on specific preferences for mind mapping applications. Products that provide a lot of graphic enrichment (e.g. HeadCase) should benefit right-brain people; products that give the most emphasis to space-efficient and logical layout (e.g. Visual Mind) should benefit left-brain people, with MindGenius and Mind Manager falling in the middle.

BrainStorm also promotes that it can benefit both types of users. It seems to me this is probably correct, but in the mirror image of mind mapping programs. Mindmapping programs, you pointed out, benefit the right-brained by providing input that makes use of right-brain talents and benefit the left-brained by providing supports for right-brain deficits. BrainStorm benefits the left-brained by making use of left-brained talents to construct global structure. It benefits the right brains by supporting support for left-brained focusing abilities by limiting the display of the range of headings.

But are the benefits equal both ways? I’m still inclined to think, but I’m far from sure, that software like this will have its greatest effect on ameliorating deficits than in exploiting strengths. If so and if the rest is right, BrainStorm will tend to benefit right-brainers most; mindmappers (particularly streamlined ones like Visual Mind) will tend to benefit left brainers.

Stephen R. Diamond

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