Abstract
Hemispheric specialization research suggests lateralized processing between hemispheres. Some of the earliest findings, within language, date back to the mid 1800's (Broca and Wernicke) demonstrating that the left hemisphere is specialized for processing different aspects of linguistics. On the other hand, the right hemisphere seems to be specialized for more spatial tasks. In other research examining complex visual information, performance for global and local stimuli is different depending of the hemisphere of presentation. Typically, there is better performance for global stimuli when presented to the right hemisphere and better performance for local stimuli when presented to the left hemisphere; and this holds true for both linguistic and nonlinguistic stimuli. In addition, this occurs for tasks that focus on memory and perceptual aspects of the stimuli. In the current study we ask whether these findings extend to the ability to detect global and local changes to stimuli presented independently to the hemispheres. In prior VSS presentations from our lab, we used simple shape stimuli that may have led to a crowding effect for some of the trials. Here, participants viewed nonlinguistic stimuli that contained a larger arrow (global) made up of smaller arrows (local). Even though stimuli were not letters, there is the possibility of verbal processing; however, we presented trials very quickly to encourage perceptual decisions. Change and no-change trials were presented in random order; for each change trial either the larger arrow (global change) or the smaller arrows (local change) pointed in a new direction. Also, these changes could have occurred on the right or left side of fixation and participants were instructed not to move their eyes. Preliminary analyses show a global precedence effect overall, but evidence of differential processing of global and local stimuli in the hemispheres in line with the prior literature.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2016