Investigation of lateral performance asymmetries in the early stages of face processing was conducted using a task which avoided the need either to memorise or to compare two faces. Subjects were merely required to decide whether or not a laterally presented stimulus constituted a face. Analysis of the latencies indicated a LVF advantage for this task which is interpreted, in conjunction with the evidence from patients suffering from prosopagnosia, as indicating a right hemisphere superiority in synthesizing facial percepts.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BentonA. L.Van AllenM. W. (1968). Impairment of facial recognition in patients with cerebral disease. Cortex4, 344–58.
2.
BeynE. S.KnyazevaG. R. (1962). The problem of prosopagnosia. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry25, 154–8.
3.
BromanM. (1978). Reaction-time differences between the left and right hemispheres for face and letter discrimination in children and adults. Cortex14, 578–91.
De RenziE.SpinnlerH. (1966). Facial recognition in brain-damaged patients: An experimental approach. Neurology16, 145–52.
6.
EllisH. D. Theoretical aspects of face recognition. In DaviesG. M.EllisH. D.ShepherdJ. W. (Eds), Perceiving and Remembering Faces.London: Academic Press (in press).
7.
EllisH. D.ShepherdJ. W. (1975). Recognition of upright and inverted faces presented in the left and right visual fields. Cortex11, 3–7.
8.
GeffenG.BradshawJ. L.WallaceG. (1971). Interhemispheric effects on reaction time to verbal and non-verbal stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology87, 415–22.
9.
HardyckC.TzengO. J. L.WangS-Y. (1978). Cerebral lateralization of function and bilingual decision processes: Is thinking lateralized?Brain and Language5, 56–71.
10.
HayD. C. (1978). An information processing analysis of cerebral asymmetries Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. University of Aberdeen.
11.
HayD. C.EllisH. D. (1980). Asymmetries in facial recognition: Evidence for a memory component. Cortex (in press).
12.
HayD. C.YoungA.The human face. In EllisA. (Ed.), Normality and Pathology in Cognitive Functions.London: Academic Press (in press).
13.
HecaenH.AngelerguesR. (1962). Agrosia for faces (prosopagnosia). Archives of Neurology7, 92–100.
14.
HilliardR. D. (1973). Hemispheric laterality effects on a facial recognition task in normal subjects. Cortex9, 246–58.
15.
KeppelG. (1973). Design and Analysis. A Researcher's HandbookNew Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
16.
KuruczJ.FeldmarG. (1979). Prosopo-affective agnosia as a symptom of cerebral organic disease. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society27, 225–30.
17.
KuruczJ.FeldmarG.WernerW. (1979). Prosopo-affective agnosia associated with chronic organic brain syndrome. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society27, 91–5.
18.
MeadowsJ. C. (1974). The anatomical basis of prosopagnosia. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry37, 489–501.
19.
MilnerB. (1968). Visual recognition and recall after right temporal lobe excision in man. Neuropsychologia6, 191–209.
20.
MortonJ. (1969). The interaction of information in word recognition. Psychological Review76, 165–78.
21.
MortonJ. (1979). Word recognition. In MortonJ.MarshallJ. C. (Eds). Psycholingual Series, 2: Structure and ProcessesLondon: Elek107–156.
22.
MoscovitchM.ScullionD.ChristieD. (1976). Early versus late stages of processing in their relation to functional hemispheric asymmetries in face recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance2, 401–16.
23.
PallisC. A. (1955). Impaired identification of faces and places with agnosia for colours. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry18, 218–24.
24.
PattersonK.BradshawJ. L. (1975). Differential hemispheric mediation of non-verbal visual stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance1, 246–53.
25.
PirozzoloF. J.RaynerK. (1980). Handedness, hemispheric specialization and saccadic eye movement latencies. Neuropsychologia18, 225–29.
26.
RaynerK. (1978). Eye movement latencies for parafoveally presented words. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society11, 13–6.
27.
RizzolattiG.UmiltaC.BerlucchiG. (1971). Opposite superiorities of left and right cerebral hemispheres in discriminative reaction-time to physiognomic and alphabetic material. Brain94, 421–2.
28.
StraussE.MoscovitchM. (1980). Perception of facial expressions. Brain and Language (in press).
29.
UmiltaC.BrizzolaraD.TabossiP.FairweatherH. (1978). Factors affecting face recognition in the cerebral hemispheres: Familiarity and naming. In RequinJ. (Ed.), Attention and Performance.Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum AssociatesVII, 363–74.
30.
WhitelyA.WarringtonE. K. (1977). Prosopagnosia: a clinical psychological and anatomical study of three patients. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry40, 395–403.
31.
WarringtonE. K.JamesM. (1967). An experimental investigation of facial recognition. Cortex3, 317–26.
32.
YoungA. (1980). Functions of the right cerebral hemisphere in childhood cognition Final report on SSRC grant HR 5078.
33.
YoungA. In BeaumontJ. G. (Ed.), Divided Visual Field Studies of Cerebral Organisation.London: Academic Press (in press)Methodological and theoretical bases of visual hemisfield studies. In (Ed.).
34.
YoungA.BionP. (1980). Absence of any developmental trend in right hemisphere superiority for face recognition. Cortex (in press).
35.
YoungA.EllisH. D. (1976). An experimental investigation of developmental differences in ability to recognise faces presented to the left and right cerebral hemispheres. Neuropsychologia14, 495–8.
