Thursday, April 30, 2009

Pavlov's Classifications of Brain Activity

Russian scientist Ivan P. Pavlov (who is famous for his experiments with dogs and bells) said that temperaments depend on the type of the central nervous system. The types of the nervous system depend on three factors:

* Strength of the nervous processes
* Balance of the nervous processes
* Mobility of the nervous processes

There are four types of temperament:

1. Sanguine temperament is characterized by a strong, balanced, and mobile nervous system.
2. Phlegmatic temperament is characterized by a strong, balanced, and inert nervous system.
3. Choleric temperament is characterized by a strong, unbalanced, and mobile nervous system.
4. Melancholic temperament is characterized by a weak, unbalanced, and inert nervous system.

In addition, he used another classification that was based on the activity of cerebral hemispheres and divided people into three types:

1. Thinking type is characterized by predominance of activity of the left cerebral hemisphere.
2. Artistic type is characterized by predominance of activity of the right cerebral hemisphere.
3. Middle type is close to the balance of activities of both cerebral hemispheres with insignificant predominance of one of them.

Considering these classifications, I think that all these differences will somehow affect cult recovery. For example, I belong to the thinking type. I like to think and analyze everything, using my logical abilities. So, what was the most important in my experience of recovery was to get the information and think it over and also to consider about my cult experience. I guess that for the artistic type people it may be different because they have picture-thinking, great emotionality, vivid imagination, and vivid perception of the reality, but they are not very skillful in logical thinking. This means that their way of cult recovery, probably, will be different.

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