Tadanobu Tsunoda
Tadanobu Tsunoda (角田忠信 Tsunoda Tadanobu) is a Japanese author, most known for his ideas regarding the "Japanese brain". According to Tsunoda's theory, the Japanese people use their brains in a unique way, different from "western" brains. The Japanese brain, argues Tsunoda, hears or processes music using the left hemisphere, where western brains use the opposite or right hemisphere to process music.[1]
Other theories
Languages are like operating systems on computers. Brains which have Japanese and Polynesian languages as the "operating system" process sounds differently from other systems. The reason for this is that users of these languages "give meaning to vowels."
Criticism
Karel van Wolferen has written "his testing methods are highly suspect. My impression, based on an account by one of his foreign guinea-pigs, is that auto-suggestion plays an important role. Yet his books sell well in Japan, and his views have been officially credited to the extent of being introduced abroad by the semi-governmental Japan Foundation".[2]