My son returned from school a while ago with a pamphlet. A speaker at school distributed the pamphlets after a talk on whole brain functioning. The pamphlet suggested that parents have their children's brain profile tested for a small sum of money. What it did not say that it was a classical bait and switch scam. The assessment would lead to a programme to promote whole brain functioning and that was not at all cheap.
A while before that a friend had to undergo a brain profile assessment at work. Being a bit more neuroscientifically astute that the average worker, he questioned the concept, as well as the reliability and validity of the brain profile "test". Hopefully this was not a career limiting move, as his boss seemed set on knowing each employee's brain preferences.
So what is brain profiling and what is its scientific status, if any?
A brain profile assessment is not as one may imagine a neurological or neuropsychological examination of brain function. As envisaged here, it is a questionnaire of thinking and behavioural preferences, putatively representing underlying differences in brain organisation. The questionnaire is sometimes combined with simple tests of motor and sensory dominance (hand, foot, eye, ear).
Brain profiling seemed to originate with Ned Herrmann, a trainer/consultant who developed his four quadrant brain model based the split brain research of Roger Sperry, combined with the triune brain model of Paul McLean. Herrmann developed his Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) to test determine so called brain profiles. The scientific rejection of the simplistic brain model his theory was based on, soon led Herrmann to state that his four quadrant brain model was to seen as a metaphor.
I quote from the extensive critique of learning style research by Coffield et al. (2004, p. 86).
Although Herrmann began with a brain-based theory of hemisphere dominance, he later accepted that this was an oversimplification with inadequate empirical support and recommended (1989, 63) that A, B, C, D quadrant terminology be used instead: ‘The whole-brain model, although originally thought of as a physiological map, is today entirely a metaphor.’
Hat tip to Jon Mueller at PESTS for this link.
Brain profiling instruments mostly seem to be derived from either Herrmann's HBDI or a shorter "test" by Paul Torrance, the "Your Style of Learning and Thinking" (SOLAT). Organisations affiliated to the Herrmann International group use the HBDI, while the Kobus Neethling Group and its affiliates use the Torrance derived instument, as adapted by Neethling.
Herrmann International claim that the HBDI is valid and reliable, but according to Prof. De Amato in the "The Eleventh Mental Measurements Yearbook, 1992", both validity and reliability are questionable. The SOLAT's validity and reliability is even more doubtful. Neethling claims high validity and reliability for his version of the SOLAT.
Claiming validity for either instrument must of necessity bring into question the validity of the "whole brain" concept on which both are based. I've indicated in a previous post that the concept is pseudoscientific nonsense that can best be described as whole-brain half-wittery. Is it sensible to even consider the validity of a psychometric test if the concept it purportedly measures is nonsense?
Even though Herrmann suggested moved away from the brain profiling idea, current Herrmann affiliated organisations, as well as Neethling affiliates, continue using brain based terminology extensively. The fact that it's meant as a metaphor, is normally only mentioned in passing and is probably missed by most of their clients. The fact that both organisations use the whole brain concept so extensively in all their programmes and do so very literally, brings about the question whether the metaphor idea has not merely become a fallback position for when they'e challenged by neuroscientifically astute clients?
My conclusion? Brain profiles are pseudoscientific in nature. The only way these instruments can get scientific respectability, would be to totally drop the pretense that they are in any form, metaphorically or otherwise, brain profiles. They are measures of thinking preferences, nothing more.
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