To
ChicagoGranny:
You're kidding, right?
This latter study, Samantaray and Telles, doesn't mention cycles, and the subjects are not described at any time as having cycles or going through cycles. Just that they were assessed as 'nostril dominant' every four minutes and within a task-period of 30 minutes.
The experiments that Samantaray and Telles were reacting to or against - the ones by Shannahoff-Khalsa and various others - those previous experiments involved both 'natural' and forced choice of alteration of nostril - operating on the belief that 'choosing' which one to use gives a boost to one or other kind of mental performance. Let's call that A.
Samantaray and Telles did the opposite. They didn't say: "Force yourself to use one nostril or the other - see if it helps with the task." They gave tasks which notionally* involved one hemisphere or the other - and checked to see if - under the 'influence' of the task - the subjects preferred (or 'chose to switch') nostrils. Let's call that B.
Two different experiments.
And both studies were looking at
cognitive tasks. The Frye and Doty work looked at a number of different aspects of physiology - including sense of smell - which involves the mid-brain and not the cortex - and the whole parasympathetic system. Let's call that C.
You can argue if you want between A and B - but neither of them cancel out C - not if you take into account ALL the aspects of C.
Not to mention, nowhere in either A or B do the researchers mention cycles. Not nasal cycles, not physiological cycles. Nor do they describe any observer being on the look-out throoughout the experiment for people who were coming to the end of their 90 minutes and 'naturally' switched to the next cycle.
So their studies are methodologically flawed. Failure to isolate a major variable.
Study C is all about cycles. The cycle IS the major independent variable. And the dependent variables are changes in the whole physiology.
Keep it honest, Madam.
* There's a lot of evidence now that that whole left-hemisphere/ right-hemisphere notion is far too simplistic. It was a convenient simplification at the time. But more modern work has gone beyond it.
