Asymmetry of Motor Behavior and Sensory Perception: Which Comes First?

Rogers, Lesley J.

doi:10.3390/sym12050690

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 109 publications

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“…One general finding is a right-hemisphere dominance for emotion, which seems to be present in all primates so far investigated, including humans [48]. It seems to be true of other animals as well, including dogs [49], horses [50], and birds [51], and probably goes far back in the evolution of vertebrates. Right-hemisphere biases also appear to be unrelated to handedness or motor asymmetries [51].…”

Section: Cerebral Asymmetry In Animalsmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…It seems to be true of other animals as well, including dogs [49], horses [50], and birds [51], and probably goes far back in the evolution of vertebrates. Right-hemisphere biases also appear to be unrelated to handedness or motor asymmetries [51]. From an evolutionary perceptive, it may reflect a left-hemispheric disposition to approach and the right hemisphere to avoidance [52].…”

Section: Cerebral Asymmetry In Animalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How Asymmetries Evolved: Hearts, Brains, and Molecules

Corballis

2021

Symmetry

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Humans belong to the vast clade of species known as the bilateria, with a bilaterally symmetrical body plan. Over the course of evolution, exceptions to symmetry have arisen. Among chordates, the internal organs have been arranged asymmetrically in order to create more efficient functioning and packaging. The brain has also assumed asymmetries, although these generally trade off against the pressure toward symmetry, itself a reflection of the symmetry of limbs and sense organs. In humans, at least, brain asymmetries occur in independent networks, including those involved in language and manual manipulation biased to the left hemisphere, and emotion and face perception biased to the right. Similar asymmetries occur in other species, notably the great apes. A number of asymmetries are correlated with conditions such as dyslexia, autism, and schizophrenia, and have largely independent genetic associations. The origin of asymmetry itself, though, appears to be unitary, and in the case of the internal organs, at least, may depend ultimately on asymmetry at the molecular level.

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Section: Cerebral Asymmetry In Animalsmentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Cerebral Asymmetry In Animalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Asymmetries Evolved: Hearts, Brains, and Molecules

Corballis

2021

Symmetry

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“…A clearer picture of the role of visual and motor representations in lateral perceptual biases toward the human body could emerge from future studies investigating-in both central and peripheral vision-the correlations between the strength of such biases for static ambiguous human silhouettes, dynamic ambiguous human silhouettes, and masked point-light walkers. Further studies should also investigate the role of optic flow and related hemisphere-specific rotational biases in the relationship between motor and perceptual preferences (e.g., [43]; for reviews, see [69,70]). Finally, it is worth addressing some possible limitations of the present study.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hemifield-Specific Rotational Biases during the Observation of Ambiguous Human Silhouettes

et al. 2021

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Both static and dynamic ambiguous stimuli representing human bodies that perform unimanual or unipedal movements are usually interpreted as right-limbed rather than left-limbed, suggesting that human observers attend to the right side of others more than the left one. Moreover, such a bias is stronger when static human silhouettes are presented in the RVF (right visual field) than in the LVF (left visual field), which might represent a particular instance of embodiment. On the other hand, hemispheric-specific rotational biases, combined with the well-known bias to perceive forward-facing figures, could represent a confounding factor when accounting for such findings. Therefore, we investigated whether the lateralized presentation of an ambiguous rotating human body would affect its perceived handedness/footedness (implying a role of motor representations), its perceived spinning direction (implying a role of visual representations), or both. To this aim, we required participants to indicate the perceived spinning direction (which also unveils the perceived handedness/footedness) of ambiguous stimuli depicting humans with an arm or a leg outstretched. Results indicated that the lateralized presentation of the stimuli affected both their perceived limb laterality (a larger number of figures being interpreted as right-limbed in the RVF than in the LVF) and their perceived spinning direction (a larger number of figures being interpreted as spinning clockwise in the LVF than in the RVF). However, the hemifield of presentation showed a larger effect size on the perceived spinning direction than on the perceived limb laterality. Therefore, as we already proposed, the implicit representation of others’ handedness seems to be affected more by visual than by motor processes during the perception of ambiguous human silhouettes.

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“…The laterality literature does not currently distinguish between motor-sensory and higherorder cognitive function biases. Recent asymmetry reviews (Corballis, 2020;Rogers, 2020;Vallortigara & Rogers, 2020;Vingerhoets, 2019) demonstrate that basic motor-sensory behaviors (e.g., looking times and directions, manual speed, precision and accuracy) are evaluated on a par with higher-order cognitive abilities (e.g., maths, reading) with little consideration of how motor-sensory behavior and higher-order cognitive functions interact with each other developmentally. However, it is more complicated than a simple binary leftright brain organization distinction.…”

Section: Data Availability Statement: N/amentioning

confidence: 99%

Hindsight 20/20: The future of laterality research

Donati

Forrester

2021

Laterality

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The last decade of laterality research has been bolstered by a significant broadening in theoretical framing and investigative approaches. Comparative research contributions continue to strengthen the position that ancient functional and anatomical brain biases are preserved in modern humans. However, how they unfold over developmental time and contribute to cognitive abilities is still unclear. To make further advances, we must position human brains and behaviors within an evolutionary framework. This includes viewing motorsensory behavior as an integral part of a developing cognitive system.

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Asymmetry of Motor Behavior and Sensory Perception: Which Comes First?

Cited by 9 publications

References 109 publications

How Asymmetries Evolved: Hearts, Brains, and Molecules

How Asymmetries Evolved: Hearts, Brains, and Molecules

Hemifield-Specific Rotational Biases during the Observation of Ambiguous Human Silhouettes

Hindsight 20/20: The future of laterality research

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