What is so different about the Japanese? What makes them so amiable and friendly, yet at times so downright irrational and so hard to understand?

Questions regarding Japanese mentality have been perplexing people since the first visit of the Chinese recorded in the Chronicles of Wei or the initial mission of Saint Francis Xavier. Hundreds of writers-from I.afcadio Hearn to Ruth Benedict, Edwin Reischauer, Daisetz Suzuki and Georges Ohsawa have written thousands of books trying to explain the seeming enigmas of the Japanese mind.

Even the Japanese themselves insist that they are different, and a veritable Mt. Fuji of literature in Japanese examines the uniqueness of Japan and Japanese ctilttire from every conceivable angle, yet the paradox still remains.

Why so amazingly, diligent and hard-working yet so fond of cultural pastimes such as the tea ceremony and zazen that place great emphasis on sitting quietly for long periods of time? Why so culturally and aesthetically in tune with nature, yet so shockingly disrespectful and abusive toward the natural environment where capital and industry are involved? Why so generally sincere and honest, yet so treacherously difficult to do business with? Why so spiritually, aspiring yet so carried away with fun and rice wine? And why, with all that is so exquisitely simple and refined in traditional culture, is modern Japan so entranced with the most gaudy Western trappings?

These and the many other curious attitudes and idiosyncracies which have been commonly acknowledged by foreign and Japanese observers seem to defy any single explanation. They can not be blamed upon racial characteristics, for example, as the people called Japanese are the result of long intermingling between various racial groups from both north and south.

Could the underlying cause be dietary habits or other environmental factors? The Japanese Diet and environment are not that from those of other Asian countries. Nor does the factor of Japan's being an isolated island country provide a sufficient explanation, because no other island
peoples possess the paradoxical traits of the Japanese.

In fact, for all of their isolation, almost every one of their major cultural institutions was imported. Almost everything that is "traditional" about Japanese culture-from kimonos to rock gardens to Buddhist temples to the martial arts-came originally from China, and of course the modern visage is taken from the West. The enigma is precisely that the same characteristic attitudes and mentality have persisted through such enormous cultural transition and change.

In the autumn of 1978 Dr. Tsunoda Tadanobu of Tokyo Medical Dental College offered 'an entirely new approach to these questions in a book entitled The Japanese Brain (Tokyo: Daishukan Shoten). As yet to be translated into English, The Japanese Brain and the "Tsunoda Theory" have created a minor sensation in Japanese intellectual circles.

Dr. Tsunoda is a specialist on hearing and speech disorders. His interest in the problems that follow cerebral strokes had led him into research on relative functions of the brain's right and left hemispheres where he first noticed some startling inconsistencies between conventional theory and the responses of his Japanese subjects.

It is now a well recognized fact that the left hemisphere of the brain in almost all human beings is dominant in verbal and logical thought processes. A stroke in the left hemisphere almost invariable results in total disruption or loss of those abilities. Dr. Tsunoda was searching for ways to develop verbal capabilities in the right hemisphere in order to avoid or overcome such otherwise permanent disabilities, when he stumbled upon his discoveries about the uniqueness of the Japanese brain functions.

He had begun his experiments by running tests on normal subjects in order to understand the function of right and left hemispheres in sound perception. As expected, mechanical sounds and musical sounds were all received in the right, nonverbal hemisphere. However, one day he happened to play a tape of his own voice pronouncing the simple sound "ah" and to his complete surprise he noticed that it registered in the left verbal hemispheres of his subjects. Further checking showed that even when the vocal "ah" Sound was harmonically very similar to the "ah" sound played on a violin, the vocal "ah" registered in the left hemisphere, while the violin sound registered invariably in the right.

When some Western scientists visited Tokyo for a research symposium, Dr. Tsunoda checked his testing methods and results against theirs. Everything was in line with what they had proved in their own countries except for the "ah" sound from the human voice being registered in the left hemisphere of Japanese subjects instead of the right hemisphere, where conventional theory said it should go.

Dr. Tsunoda then began experimenting with a wide assortment of non Japanese subjects among Tokyo's resident foreign population. They included North Americans, South Americans, Europeans from almost every European language group, Africans, Middle Easterners, Indians, Australians, New Zealanders, Philippinos, Chinese, and Koreans. He began experimenting with a wider varietv of sounds than before. He found that in all cases the vowel sounds were registered as verbal (in the left hemisphere) for his Japanese subjects and as nonverbal (in the right hemisphere) for everyone else-including the Koreans and the Chinese.

The human brain remains one of the most puzzling parts of our anatomy, especially with regard to its capacity for higher thought processes. For all of its success when applied to the material world, science has made very little progress toward any precise measurement of thought itself.

All that had been determined with a fair amount of precision so far is the mapping of which parts of the brain control which functions.

Most of the instinctive, emotional, and subconscious thought processes oc cur in the allocortex, which is located closest to the brain stem and is the earliest in evolutionary development. The outermost neocortex, where more advanced thought processes occur, accounts for 90 percent of the total cortex area in a human being. The gradual evolutionary extension, of the human forehead matches the development of the frontal and prefrontal lcobes, where most of the rationally creative thought processes take place.

Physical functions of the two sides of the body are generally controlled by the opposite hemispheres of the brain; thus, the right hand is controlled by the left hemisphere, and the left hand by the right hemisphere. Right-handedness in about nine out of ten people mirrors dominance of the cerebral left hemisphere, while the cerebral right hemisphere is dominant in hand functions of the remaining one-out-of-ten left handers.

The higher thinking processese.g., rationality and creativity-are closely related, to the cognition of verbal language. So much of our thinking, including memory and the self-awareness that is consciousness itself, is either measured in or is a direct function of language, that to take words away from us is to take away. most of what is human-as Dr. Tsunoda knew all too well from his experience with victims of apoplexy in the left, verbal hemisphere.

Because verbal processes are primarily a function of the left hemisphere, and nonverbal processes (such as appreciating music) are functions of the right hemisphere, the left half of the brain is often called the major or dominant hemisphere and the right half is called the minor or nondominant hemisphere.

According to contemporary theory, all nonverbal sounds--be they sounds of the human voice other than words like "ah", "eh", "ee", "oh", and "oo"), tones of musical instruments, sounds of nature, or mechanical sounds are registered in the minor, nondominant, right half of the brain. That's why Dr. Tsunoda was amazed when the vocal sound of "ah" registered verbally with his Japanese subjects-i.e., in their left instead of right hemisphere.

In subsequent testing Tsunoda discovered that the four other principal vowel sounds (i, u, e, and o) also registered with his Japanese subjects as if they were words instead of just sounds.

Was there some kind of anatomical or physiological difference in the makeup of the Japanese brain? It seemed impossible.

Dr. Tsunoda further discovered that these responses were characteristic of anyone born or brought up in the Japanese language environment. He was surprised to find that despite all of the racial, cultural, and even linguistic similarities between the Japanese and their closest neighbors, the Koreans, all first generation Koreans responded the same way as Europeans, whereas Korean children brought up in Japan responded like Japanese children. Furthermore, European children brought up in Japan also responded like Japanese children. Even stranger, all second and third generation Japanese brought up abroad lost this singular characteristic ability in direct proportion to their lack of exposure to the mother tongue. By the third generation these racial Japanese usually showed exactly the same brain functions as the people of the society into which they were born.

Evidently this peculiar mechanism of hearing was neither racial nor hereditary: rather, it was a direct result of some special factor in the language environment.

Only a brief look at the phonetic construction of the Japanese language is necessary in order to identify this special characteristic. Japanese is constructed from fifty simple sounds shown in the accompanying chart.

THE FIFTY-SOUND SYLLABARY OF THE JAPANESE LANGUAGE

(The chart reads in vertical columns from right to left)

• CHILD SOUNDS ---------MOTHER SOUNDS

• wa ra ya ma ha na sa ta ka---------- a
• wi ri yi mi hi ni si ti ki--------------i
• wu ru yu mu hu nu su tu ku----------u
• we re ye me he ne se te ke-----------e
• wo ro yo mo ho no so to ko-----------o

(An additional twenty-five variations of these sounds, Plus the single sound "n", are also used; however, for the sake of simplicity these will not be considered here.) Although the Japanese language has gone through considerable transformation-this the language used in such traditional arts as the noh plays and kabuki is no longer understandable to modern ears-it is an outstanding fact that these fifty basic sounds have remained the same since earliest time.

In Japanese the vowel sounds, a, i, u, e, and o are called "mother sounds," and are considered the mother or originative elements of spoken sound, as their position in the right-hand column indicates. Coupled with nine other consonant "parents" k, t, s, n, h, m, y, r, and w, they form forty-five "child sounds" to complete the basic fifty syllables.

Note that the consonant parent is always sounded first and the final emphasis of the syllable is always the vowel component; thus, the consonant beginning always turns into a vowel ending.

The importance of vowel sounds in Japanese is further demonstrated by the peculiar fact that Japanese is the only language known where all of the vowel sounds also function as meaningful words in themselves. There are occasional examples of single vowel sounds possessing limited meaning in other languages-such as the indefinite article "a" in English-however the multiple possible meanings of each of the five vowels in Japanese is unprecedented. The single sound of "i", for example, has meanings as various as "stomach", "consciousness", and "difference". Furthermore, each of the vowel sounds can be written with between ten and fifty different ideograms, each with a different meaning.

Dr. Tsunoda mentions another key aspect of vowel importance in his book. Take an English text-the text of this paragraph for example-and strike out all of the vowels. Y wli fnd tht y cn rd th txt wth cmprt~ly Ittl dffclty. The same holds true for texts in any of the European languages if observed by a native speaker. In fact, Hebrew is normally written without any vowel sounds at all; merely by seeing the written consonants the reader of Hebrew normally supplies the appropriate vowels from the context. On the contrary, a transliteration of Japanese into the Roman alphabet without the use of vowels is usually undecipherable-or capable of being deciphered into several different texts of completely different meaning.

The crucial factor in the language environment responsible for the strange phenomenon observed by Dr. Tsunoda is this particular emphasis upon vowel sounds in Japanese.

In all of Dr. Tsunoda's subjects, music was invariably registered in the nonverbal, right hemisphere. Where language was included with music, however, as in the case of songs, the response shifted immediately to the verbal half. in general, wherever sounds of speech were present in any mixture, the center of hearing switched imniediately to the verbal left.

Dr. Tsunoda has theorized that a switch mechanism is located somewhere within the human hearing mechanism that distinguishes between verbal and non-verbal sounds. This switch registers either right or left, depending upon what kind of sound is being received. According to Dr. Tsunoda's findings however, word sounds are always dominant, no matter what background they are received against.

Dr. Tsunoda also noticed that the consumption of stimulants, including coffee and tea, sedatives, alcohol, smelling agents such as annnonia, and tobacco, had a detrimental influence upon the function of this switch mechanism. He discovered that after smoking even one cigarette, the switch mechanism of the subject was impaired for one hour or longer.

The switch mechanism in a relaxed state apparently remains open to both the right and left hemispheres. In this open state humans exhibit what is called divergent thinking, or imaginative, uncontrolled, and especially receptive thought processes. The opposite kind of convergent thinking, or rational and logical thought processes working toward a particular end, take!

The switch mechanism is directed toward the left or verbal hemisphere. What Dr. Tsunoda noticed with regard to tobacco and the other agents listed above was that after finishing with a verbal process the switch mechanism did not move back to its relaxed and open state. In other words, the mind stayed fixed in a state of convergent thought rather than relaxing.

The divergent or imaginative state is the source of fresh ideas and new mental perspectives. By inducing a state of stress, alterants such as tobacco, coffee, and alcohol interfere with our capacity for creative thought. In view of the large quantities in which these items are now being consumed, both in Japan and elsewhere, it is startling to consider the influence they may be having on human creative capability in the world today.

The peculiar response of Dr. Tsunoda's Japanese subjects to single, vowel sounds out of context with ordinary language seemed to be an idiosyncrasy of the Japanese language environment with very little further philosophic importance. Then, one autumn evening about a year after his original discovery, Dr. Tsunoda sat with his window open trying to compose a written statement about his findings. The sound of a Japanese cricket heard through the open window distracted him so completely that he sat listening for a couple of hours without accomplishing anything. Tsunoda's scientific mind went to work on this phenomenon. There were technical difficulties involved with getting the cricket sound on tape in a pure enough form for his clinical tests, and there was also the ridicule and criticism of his contemporaries over the apparent mearinglessness of such a test. Yet the cricket question intrigued him so much that he followed through until he was able to obtain results. The cricket sound, like the sound of "ah", was registered verbally with his Japanese subjects!

Then proceeded a whole new series of tests and a whole barage of new discoveries. Tsunoda experimented with the sounds of other insects, the sounds of birds, dogs, cats, cows, pigs, horses, and lions. He also included nonverbal sounds of the human voice, such as laughter, crying, sounds of anger, baby sounds and snoring. Sure enough, all of these registered verbally with his Japanese subjects while they registered nonverbally with all of his foreign subjects. what's more, sounds of nonanimate nature-the sound of waves, wind, rain -all registered verbally! It seemed that his Japanese subjects were putting the whole gamut of sounds from nature in the left sides of their brains.

Perhaps the most baffling and astounding discovery was that, whereas it had been assumed that music was unconditionally a function of the right hemisphere, the sounds of the traditional Japanese musical instruments, such as the shakuhachi, the koto, and the samisen, were all heard verbally by his Japanese subjects. Needless to say they were heard nonverbally by his European and other non-Japanese subjects.

The cultural implications of Tsunoda's findings were enormous. Right and left cognition in the Japanese brain seemed to be divided according to a different set of criteria from that used by foreign subjects.

DIFFERING FUNCTIONS OF THE
EUROPEAN AND JAPANESE BRAIN

EUROPEAN

DOMINANT HEMISPHERE .................NON-DOMINANT HEMISPHERE
(Left brain) .............................(Right brain)

Language.............................Music
Consonant sounds.....Sounds made by musical instruments

Computation.......................... Mechanical sounds
.................................................Vowel Sounds
.................................................Human sounds: ......................................laughing, moaning, crying
..............................snoring, humming, throat sounds

JAPANESE

DOMINANT HEMISPHERE ..............NON-DOMINANT HEMISPHERE


(Left brain)......................(Right brain)

Language ................................Music
Consonant sounds...........Sounds made by
...........................................musical instruments
............................................(other than Japanese)
Vowel sounds .........................Mechanical sounds
Sounds of Japanese
musical instruments
Insect sounds
Animal Sounds
Computation


The affinity of Japanese culture with nature seemed to be directly linked with these mental processes specifically, sounds of nature were being heard verbally, just as though nature were talking-hence, the traditional concept of hundreds of thousands of "kami" or, spirits that existed in each and every natural phenomenon, and hence the special fascination for nonverbal processes such as zazen (zen meditation) and tea ceremony. The development of nonverbal processes was both a form of relaxation and a necessity in order to maintain individual mental and spiritual equilibrium between the right brain and the overburdened left brain.

Dr. Tsunoda developed the concept of what he calls "vowel-oriented culture" and "consonant-oriented culture." Vowel-oriented culture (i.e., Japanese culture) is based on the perception of vowel sounds. Tsunoda speculates that the sounds of nature resemble these pure vowel sounds. They sound like meaningful Japanese words, but not of course like meaningful words for speakers of other languages, which are all consonant -oriented. Consequently, phenomena are not divided between verbal and nonverbal for the Japanese as they are with other cultures. Instead, argues Tsunoda, the Japanese divide phenomena into living and nonliving in a special way. Living includes the human voice as well as the sounds of nature; what is left over-nontraditional music and most meciianical sounds-are all nonliving and go to the right or nondominant hemisphere.

Why the special status of Japanese music and musical instruments? Traditional Japanese music is acknowledged to be based upon patterns of speech, a fact which might explain why it is so hard to appreciate for non-Japanese listeners. The instruments are uncannily human sounding, and all lack the refined and sophisticated sound engineer-ing of Western instruments. The slipstream of air in the shakuhachi that reverberates like the rustling wind of a bamboo forest is a desirable effect, retained purposely, whereas it was refined out of the Western recorder and oboe a long time ago. Dr. Tsunoda makes the interesting observation that where Western instruments have been considerably changed and improved upon over the centuries (the modern piano, recognition, it remains for the most part unappreciated and misunderstood by non-Japanese. Today, when we must decide between total destruction or the beginning of one peaceful world, shouldn't Japan have something pertinent and significant to offer from her unique perspective? More than electronic equipment, shouldn't the Japanese develop and make known to the rest of the world their strong power of synthesis and capacity for creating harmony in self and surroundings? This seems to be what Georges Ohsawa, one of the individuals most responsible for introducing Japanese culture to the West was proposing in his expression of what he called "the Unique Principle," of yin and yang. [See this month's "Spirit" column--ed. ]

The brightest prospect for fundamental solutions to world-wide problems may be cultural exchange and mutual understanding between East and West. The unique vantage point of the Japanese brain on the oneness of humanity and nature could contribute substantially to the appreciation of the natural order that pervades the universe. Dr. Tsunoda's work opens up a whole new horizon for further study. Undoubtedly the greatest challenge to the human mind is that of understanding itself.