Probability matching in the right hemisphere.
Previously it has been shown that the left hemisphere, but not the right, of split-brain patients tends to match the frequency of previous occurrences in probability-guessing paradigms (Wolford, Miller, & Gazzaniga, 2000). This phenomenon has been attributed to an "interpreter," a mechanism for making interpretations and forming hypotheses, thought to reside exclusively in the left hemisphere. In this study with a split-brain patient, we had him guess one of two types of faces, stimuli known to be preferentially processed in the right hemisphere of this patient. Unlike previous studies using other kinds of stimuli, the right hemisphere matched the frequency of the previous occurrences of a face-type, but the left hemisphere did not.
Miller
Michael B
MB
Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9660, United States. miller@psych.ucsb.edu
Valsangkar-Smyth
Monica
M
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery*; D003337:Corpus Callosum / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery*; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology*; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery*; D005145:Face; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010897:Pitch Discrimination / Q000502:physiology; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011337:Probability Learning