Hemispheric specialization for mental rotation.
A sample of 133 normal subjects, and one commissurotomized subject, were given a "mental-rotation" task, in which they were timed as they decided whether rotated letters, flashed in the left or right visual hemifield, were normal or backward. The normal subjects showed a significant right-hemifield advantage in reaction time, while the commissurotomized subject showed a pronounced left-hemifield advantage in both accuracy and reaction time. We argue that mental-rotation is primarily a right-hemispheric specialization, but that this was offset in the normal subjects by a stronger left-hemispheric specialization for letter identification.
Corballis
M C
MC
Dept. Psychology, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Sergent
J
J
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000601:surgery; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D009949:Orientation; D011930:Reaction Time; D012016:Reference Values; D013850:Thinking; D014794:Visual Fields