Interesting how this idea keeps coming back. Perhaps there's something to it, but I think it is something more subtle than most authors have claimed. To me the bicameral mind concept is a little like the concept that religion is a result of parental schema. There's probably a real core of truth to it, but there's an even stronger tendency to try to fit everything about ourselves into a universal dichotomy. The truth behind this I think is that there is a mammalian evolutionary pattern for different kinds of cognition-relevant specializations. I suspect there's a selective pressure to separate certain things based on interference or non-interference with each other. The question is whether we can really derive all these extravagant sorts of cultural patterns from just this kind of pattern of interference of specializations driving them into separate cortical lobes. Perhaps most notably, we have cognitive strategies for pattern finding and pattern decoding. But we use these together in nearly everything we do. Why try to explain broad cultural trends in terms of separating out brain functions that we normally use in completely coordinated way? It seems like we tend to take some good basic observations and stretch them into levels of theory where they don't quite apply as well.

Two thoughts on the Tom Wujec presentation: (1) The psychologically oriented part was very good, indicating and illustrating how we make meaning visually. (And I think he's a good speaker). (2) For me personally, the neuroscience part was almost gratuitous. Mentioning a couple of brain areas and then adding somewhat arbitrarily chosen recent theories of their role in visual processing didn't add anything to the talk for me. There's a lot more going on in visual processing than he describes that is relevant to meaning-making, and the what/where stream theory is not by any means even universally accepted much less adding substantially to the psychological points made in the presentation. His neuroscience was for me more distracting from his more interesting points than it was helpful. The real point I got out of this is that visual processing is interactive and that meaning is constructive, so the process of sharing visually compelling models facilitates mutual comprehension. Fancy pictures of brains seem to be the modern equivalent of the ubiquitous white lab coat from old TV commercials. It serves as an artificially concocted signal of technical credibility. Yes, we know it has everything to do with the technical wonders that the brain does, but we shouldn't stick in arbitrary technical neuroscience details unless they really add to our understanding of the key points of the presentation.

Yes, I agree. I think that would be consistent with most of the findings regarding "central" vs. "peripheral" persuasion in social psychology as well. Some priming effects are lessened by metacognition (though probably not all to the same degree).

I had a colleague once who routinely uesd active listening techniques. It annoyed the hell out of some of our clients in meetings, and at first that confused me. I realized it was because by asking those questions and reflecting back, he was essentially giving the message that he didn't understand what other people assumed was being understood by all. That kind of reflecting is useful at times, but it is a big hammer. It should be used when there is really a likelihood that people have very different perceptions. Otherwise, active listening needs to be more subtle I think. It should enhance the sense that people are understanding each other as well as encourging them to expand on differences. Otherwise people get frustrated and feel like they aren't being heard and have to repeat things. The idea of active listening is sound, I think, but the skills have to be nuanced.