By Susan Carroll
Arizona Daily Wildcat
March 11, 1998

Learn 'who we are' at speech tonight

Are you in your right mind?

You can bring both sides of your brain to a free lecture tonight to learn what the right and left hemispheres of the brain actually do.

"The two sides look at everything in the world differently," Dr. Robert Ornstein said yesterday in an e-mail interview. "One looks to find details, the other for the overall picture."

Ornstein will present a culmination of 25 years of research at the lecture in the University Medical Center's Duval Auditorium tonight from 7:30 to 9.

"The aim of my trip is to meet with faculty and students here in the consciousness program, and share a bit of my work," Ornstein said.

The lecture is not a first for Ornstein. He has presented his research at over 250 universities and written more than 20 books.

Ornstein, the founder of the Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge in Los Altos, Calif., released The Right Mind: Making Sense of Hemispheres last year.

"It is a culmination of 25 years of left-right research," Ornstein said. "But, there are other culminations to come - people haven't heard the last of me."

Roger Dahood, a University of Arizona professor of English who initially asked Ornstein to speak at the UA, said the lecture is "aimed at the kind of people who watch NOVA on PBS."

"He's a good popular writer," Dahood said. "He takes the latest research and turns it into language for a generally educated audience."

Alan Kazniak, a psychology professor and co-founder of the UA's Consciousness Studies program, said Ornstein's lecture will "tell us about who we are."

Kazniak said the College of Humanities, Consciousness Studies, and the UA's English, Philosophy and Psychology departments pooled money to jointly sponsor Ornstein's lecture because he presents universal issues.