Target detection in one visual field in the presence or absence of stimuli in the contralateral field by right- and left-handed subjects

• Published in: Brain and cognition Vol. 12; no. 1; p. 117
• Main Authors: Yund, E W, Efron, R, Nichols, D R
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01-01-1990
• Subjects: Adult; Attention; Discrimination Learning; Dominance, Cerebral; Female; Form Perception; Functional Laterality; Humans; Male; Orientation; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Psychomotor Performance; Serial Learning; Visual Fields
• ISSN: 0278-2626
• DOI: 10.1016/0278-2626(90)90008-C

Marked differences in detectability are observed as a function of retinal locus when subjects are required to find a briefly exposed target pattern of uncertain location in the presence of a number of discriminably different nontarget patterns. Our previous studies using this search paradigm have attributed these detectability differences, and the right visual field detectability superiority associated with them, to a serial (scanning) mechanism which tends to examine stimuli in the right field earlier than those in the left. The present experiment, performed on large groups of right- and left-handed subjects, was designed to test the hypothesis that there are two independent serial processors, one in each hemisphere--an hypothesis which might account for the differences in detectability within and between the two half-fields in terms of hemispheric processing differences. The results are inconsistent with the dual independent serial processor hypothesis but are fully consistent with a single serial processor, a scanning mechanism, which has access to the information presented to both visual half-fields.