Upper/lower visual field asymmetry on a spatial relocation memory task

Genzano, V R; Nocera, Francesco Di; Ferlazzo, Fabio

doi:10.1097/00001756-200105080-00034

Cited by 22 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…In recent years, the theoretical and methodological marriage of cognitive psychology and cognitive neurosciences has led to a re-evaluation of the role of action systems in information processing: task demands and action requirements have been found to affect visual perception (Craighero, Fadiga, Rizzolatti, & Umilta`, 1999;Hamilton, Joyce, Flanagan, Frith, & Wolpert, 2005;Mu¨sseler & Hommel, 1997;Wohlschla¨ger, 2000), the selection of visual objects (Hommel & Schneider, 2002;Lupia´n˜ez, Ruz, Funes, & Milliken, 2005;Rizzolatti, Riggio, & Sheliga, 1994;Tipper, Howard, & Houghton, 1999), and memory (Genzano, Di Nocera, & Ferlazzo, 2001;Hommel & Knuf, 2000;Pickering, Gathercole, Hall, & Lloyd, 2001), suggesting a more dynamic interplay between action control and other cognitive systems than the standard unidirectional stage model of human information processing suggests (Ward, 2002). However, despite the increase of empirical evidence, the nature and functional meaning of these interactions are still a matter of debate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intentional control of attention: action planning primes action-related stimulus dimensions

Fagioli

Hommel

Schubotz

2005

Psychological Research

173

162

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Neurophysiological observations suggest that attending to a particular perceptual dimension, such as location or shape, engages dimension-related action, such as reaching and prehension networks. Here we reversed the perspective and hypothesized that activating action systems may prime the processing of stimuli defined on perceptual dimensions related to these actions. Subjects prepared for a reaching or grasping action and, before carrying it out, were presented with location- or size-defined stimulus events. As predicted, performance on the stimulus event varied with action preparation: planning a reaching action facilitated detecting deviants in location sequences whereas planning a grasping action facilitated detecting deviants in size sequences. These findings support the theory of event coding, which claims that perceptual codes and action plans share a common representational medium, which presumably involves the human premotor cortex.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intentional control of attention: action planning primes action-related stimulus dimensions

Fagioli

Hommel

Schubotz

2005

Psychological Research

173

162

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“…Accordingly, in extrastriate cortex, the LVF is represented dorsally and the UVF ventrally [4,5] . Behaviorally, LVF superiority has been found across a variety of tasks: simple reaction time [6] , luminance threshold [7] , temporal and spatial contrast sensitivities and visual acuity [3] , perception of illusory contours [8] , sensitivity to chromatic motion under isoluminant conditions [9] , visually guided pointing [10] and spatial relocation memory task [11] . Moreover, some behavioral studies suggest that there might be attentional asymmetry between the upper and lower visual fields.…”

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confidence: 99%

Asymmetry between the upper and lower visual fields: An event-related potential study

Song

Ding

2006

CHINESE SCI BULL

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Using event-related potentials (ERPs), the present study examined the electrophysiological and attentional asymmetries between the upper visual field (UVF) and the lower visual field (LVF) while subjects were performing a target detecting task. The early ERP components showed a smaller P1 and a larger N1 in LVF than in UVF over the occipito-parietal areas, while the late components (N2 and P3) showed no difference between the two visual fields. In addition, the attention enhancement on the P1 component was greater in UVF than in LVF. These findings suggest that the function of the UVF and LVF differ in terms of both early visual information processing and attentional modulation.Keywords: asymmetry, upper visual field, lower visual field, event-related potentials, attentional modulation.Asymmetries of human visual information processing across visual fields have been an interesting issue in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. In addition to investigations of the asymmetries between the left and right visual fields that are believed to reflect the functional differences between the left and right hemispheres [1] , a number of studies have proposed that visual processing also differs between the upper and lower visual fields [2,3] . Anatomically, in striate cortex of each hemisphere, the LVF is represented above the calcarine fissure, whereas the UVF is represented below the fissure. Accordingly, in extrastriate cortex, the LVF is represented dorsally and the UVF ventrally [4,5] . Behaviorally, LVF superiority has been found across a variety of tasks: simple reaction time [6] , luminance threshold [7] , temporal and spatial contrast sensitivities and visual acuity [3] , perception of illusory contours [8] , sensitivity to chromatic motion under isoluminant conditions [9] , visually guided pointing [10] and spatial relocation memory task [11] . Moreover, some behavioral studies suggest that there might be attentional asymmetry between the upper and lower visual fields. For instance, He et al. [12] reported that attentional resolution was greater in the LVF than that in the UVF. Altpeter et al. [13] also found that patients with maculopathies sustained attention with the LVF better than with the UVF. Only a few studies found a UVF advantage, such as those using a lexical decision task [14] and in saccadic eye movement task [15] . It has been proposed by Previc [2] that there might be an ecological significance to the functional specialization of the UVF and LVF, which is in agreement with the functional segregation of the dorsal and ventral visual cortical pathways.In contrast to the large numbers of behavioral studies, relatively few electrophysiological studies have examined asymmetries between the two vertical hemifields. One study using magnetoencephalograph (MEG) revealed stronger occipital activation in response to the LVF stimuli than to the UVF stimuli [16] ; another MEG study reported direction-dependent apparent motion in UVF but not in LVF [17] . Several ERP studies consistently reported that the latenci...

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“…The functional separation of visual processing in upper and lower regions of visual space has been demonstrated using computer-generated three-dimensional virtual environments (VEs; Aguirre & D'Esposito, 1997;Shelton & Gabrieli, 2002). Recently, the lower visual field superiority has also been extended to a spatial memory task by Genzano, Di Nocera, and Ferlazzo (2001), who found that participants were better able to remember the locations of patterned blocks when they had appeared in the lower, as opposed to the upper, visual field during an exposure phase and also that this ability was adversely affected by spatial interference (finger tapping in a spatial sequence), but not by visual interference.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Memory for targets in a multilevel simulated environment: Evidence for vertical asymmetry in spatial memory

Wilson

Foreman²,

Stanton

et al. 2004

Memory & Cognition

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Upper/lower visual field asymmetry on a spatial relocation memory task

Cited by 22 publications

References 17 publications

Intentional control of attention: action planning primes action-related stimulus dimensions

Intentional control of attention: action planning primes action-related stimulus dimensions

Asymmetry between the upper and lower visual fields: An event-related potential study

Memory for targets in a multilevel simulated environment: Evidence for vertical asymmetry in spatial memory

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