Mental rotation in a commissurotomized subject.
The commissurotomized subject L.B. showed a strong right-hemispheric advantage on a task requiring him to judge rotated letters normal or backward, but a left-hemispheric advantage in a task requiring discrimination of the same letters, implying that the right-hemispheric advantage has to do with mental rotation. However, his right hemisphere proved unable to perform a task requiring mental rotation of a simple unfamiliar pattern to a designated "upright", and was inferior to the left on a task requiring two such patterns, at varying orientations relative to one another, to be judged same or different. We suggest that the deficiency of the right hemisphere on these tasks was unrelated to mental rotation per se, but reflected a failure to comprehend the tasks properly.
Corballis
M C
MC
Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Sergent
J
J
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D003337:Corpus Callosum / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery*; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000601:surgery*; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology