title: Do left and right asymmetries of hemispheric preference interact with attention to predict local and global performance in applied tasks?
abstract: Many cognitive neuroscience studies show that the ability to attend to and identify global or local information is lateralised between the two hemispheres in the human brain; the left hemisphere is biased towards the local level, whereas the right hemisphere is biased towards the global level. Results of two studies show attention-focused people with a right ear preference (biased towards the left hemisphere) are better at local tasks, whereas people with a left ear preference (biased towards the right hemisphere) are better at more global tasks. In a third study we determined if right hemisphere-biased followers who attend to global stimuli are likely to have a stronger relationship between attention and globally based supervisor ratings of performance. Results provide evidence in support of this hypothesis. Our research supports our model and suggests that the interaction between attention and lateral preference is an important and novel predictor of work-related outcomes.
authors.affiliation: The School of Management, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia. c.jackson@unsw.edu.au
authors.forename: Chris J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Jackson
authors.forename: Elizabeth V
authors.initials: EV
authors.lastname: Hobman
authors.forename: Nerina L
authors.initials: NL
authors.lastname: Jimmieson
authors.forename: Robin
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Martin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000533:Altruism; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology*; D004650:Employee Performance Appraisal; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006309:Hearing / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000502:physiology; D009799:Ocular Physiological Phenomena; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014785:Vision, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult