A left-sided visuospatial bias in birds

Diekamp, Bettina; Regolin, Lucia; Güntürkün, Onur; Vallortígara, Giorgio

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2005.05.017

Cited by 112 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…The fact that the majority of our subjects deviated to the left is in accordance with a vast literature on "pseudoneglect", i.e. the predominant tendency towards systematic leftward shifts of spatial attention both in healthy humans (Jewel and McCourt 2000) and animals (Diekamp et al 2005). The magnitude of pseudoneglect is thought to be a function of the extent to which an individual relies on RH cognitive functions, both spatial and non-spatial (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Emotion and space: lateralized emotional word detection depends on line bisection bias

2009

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Emotion and space: lateralized emotional word detection depends on line bisection bias Tamagni, C; Mantei, T; Brugger, P There is converging evidence, from various independent areas of neuroscience, for a functional specialization of the left and right cerebral hemispheres for positive and negative emotions, respectively ("valence theory" of emotional processing). One subfield, however, has produced mixed results, i.e. work on the detection of parafoveally presented positively or negatively emotional words by healthy subjects. Right or left visual field advantages were described and interpreted as reflecting the superiority of either the left hemisphere (LH) for linguistic material, or of the right hemisphere (RH) for highly emotional stimuli. Here we show that 48 healthy, right-handed participants' performance on a lateralized lexical decision task depends on their individual inclination to bisect a line to the left or right of the objective center. Only those with a bisection bias to the right showed the LH advantage for word detection known from the neuropsychological literature. Negative emotional words were processed with comparable accuracy in the two visual fields. However, a recognition advantage for negative over positive emotional words was found exclusively for those participants with a leftward line bisection bias. These results suggest that in work on functional hemispheric differences state variables like stimulus lateralization and word emotionality may be less decisive than the trait variable of lateral hemispatial attention. We propose a cautious reconsideration of the concept of "hemisphericity," which once emphasized individual differences in baseline hemispheric arousal, but was later dismissed in a reaction to oversimplifications in popular science accounts. AbstractThere is converging evidence, from various independent areas of neuroscience, for a

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Emotion and space: lateralized emotional word detection depends on line bisection bias

2009

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“…However, Nicholls and Roberts (2002) demonstrated that although these factors might influence the left bias, they cannot account for it entirely as right-toleft readers and bimanual responding also lead to leftward biases. There has been some preliminary indication that perceptual asymmetries also occur in birds (Diekamp et al, 2005;Regolin, 2006;Rugani, Kelly, Szelest, Regolin, & Vallortigara, 2010), as they demonstrate a leftward bias similar to that observed in humans. This suggests that they also show lateralization of attention, which could have an evolutionary basis (Diekamp et al, 2005;Regolin, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 79%

“…An additional possibility relates to the more recent evolutionary explanations that have emerged from the examination of perceptual asymmetries in birds (Diekamp et al, 2005;Regolin, 2006). Further research in this area might also contribute to the understanding of VF differences that have been observed among human participants.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A final explanation, although preliminary, also appears promising. It has been shown that birds demonstrate a leftward bias on perceptual asymmetries tasks, which suggests the possibility of an evolutionary basis for the leftward bias (Diekamp, Regolin, Güntürkün, & Vallortigara, 2005;Regolin, 2006). However, this explanation is quite preliminary and admittedly difficult to examine in a human population.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Upper and lower visual field differences in perceptual asymmetries

Elias

2011

Brain Research

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Neurologically normal individuals show a leftward spatial bias and tend to collide with objects on the right side more frequently than on the left. The upper visual field is associated with extrapersonal space, and mediated by the ventral stream through parvocellular projections.The lower visual field is associated with peripersonal space, and mediated by the dorsal stream through magnocellular projections. Upper and lower visual field differences have been observed in perceptual asymmetries but results have been mixed. Object-and space-based coordinates also both influence the leftward bias; however their relative contributions are unknown as similar spatial conditions are often collapsed across. More left-side collisions emerged on a route following task in the lower visual field and more right-side collisions were seen in the upper visual field (Thomas, Stuckel, Gutwin, & Elias, 2009). Left-handers made more right-side collisions in the central condition, whereas right-handers showed no bias. Leftward biases on the greyscales task were stronger in the lower visual field; however no distance-based differences were observed (Thomas & Elias, 2010). A stronger spatial bias was found on the greyscales task, whereas a stronger object-based bias was found on the object luminosity task (Thomas & Elias, in press). When individual spatial conditions were examined, the image chosen most often was always located in the lower field. Stimulus type and spatial location interacted to determine which coordinate type contributes more strongly to leftward biases. We also found that the leftward bias on the greyscales task was stronger in the lower visual field during prolonged presentation and in the upper visual field during brief presentation. A global motion task was created to preferentially engage magnocellular projections to the dorsal stream. Isoluminant red/green and blue/yellow colour tasks, which preferentially engage parvocellular projections to the ventral stream, were also created. Leftward biases were seen on the greyscales and motion tasks. On an isoluminant colour task, biases were significantly weakened, suggesting

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“…For example, toads, chicks and dunnarts differ in their promptness to react to a predator depending on the visual hemifield in which it appears (Lippolis et al 2002(Lippolis et al , 2005Dharmaretnam & Rogers 2005), and mosquitofish make closer cooperative predator inspection when predator and shoalmates are seen with the correspondingly preferred eye (De Santi et al 2001). Gelada baboons and Anolis lizards are more likely to attack a conspecific on one side than the other (Deckel 1995;Casperd & Dunbar 1996), and side biases are shown by toads, chicks and pigeons in food detection (Vallortigara et al 1998;Diekamp et al 2005). Investigating whether individuals with greater left -right differences pay larger costs even in these cases will help us to assess the generality of our findings and expand our understanding of the selective mechanisms maintaining individual differences in lateralization.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The costs of hemispheric specialization in a fish

et al. 2009

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Laboratory and field studies have documented better cognitive performance associated with marked hemispheric specialization in organisms as diverse as chimpanzees, domestic chicks and topminnows. While providing an evolutionary explanation for the emergence of cerebral lateralization, this evidence represents a paradox because a large proportion of non-lateralized (NL) individuals is commonly observed in animal populations. Hemispheric specialization often determines large left -right differences in perceiving and responding to stimuli. Using topminnows selected for a high or low degree of lateralization, we tested the hypothesis that individuals with greater functional asymmetry pay a higher performance cost in situations requiring matching information from the two eyes. When trained to use the middle door in a row of a nine, NL fish correctly chose the central door in most cases, while lateralized fish showed systematic leftward or rightward biases. When choosing between two shoals, each seen with a different eye, NL fish chose the high-quality shoal significantly more often than the lateralized fish, whose performance was affected by eye preference for analysing social stimuli. These findings suggest the existence of a trade-off between computational advantages of hemispheric specialization and the ecological cost of making suboptimal decisions whenever relevant information is located on both sides of the body.

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A left-sided visuospatial bias in birds

Cited by 112 publications

References 16 publications

Emotion and space: lateralized emotional word detection depends on line bisection bias

Emotion and space: lateralized emotional word detection depends on line bisection bias

Upper and lower visual field differences in perceptual asymmetries

The costs of hemispheric specialization in a fish

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