Cerebral Asymmetry and the Integrated Function of the Brain

Doux, Joseph E. Le

doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-773250-3.50012-7

Cited by 18 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…3 of the present review), it has long been proposed that right-lateralized functions of the human brain, such as face recognition, occur merely as a consequence of the well-established LH lateralization of the language function (Lhermitte et al 1972;Gazzaniga and Ledoux 1978;Corballis and Morgan 1978;Ellis 1983). For instance, LeDoux (1983) explicitly proposed that visuospatial skills in the occipito-temporo-parietal junction could be primarily mediated by brain areas of the right hemisphere because of the opposite left hemispheric region being taken over by language in humans (i.e., Wernicke's area). According to this view, many right hemispheric advantages, including face recognition, are mere consequences of invasion of the left hemisphere by language (and praxis) skills in humans (Ellis 1983;Corballis 1983Corballis , 1991; see also Gotts et al 2013).…”

Section: Is Human Face Recognition Right-lateralized Due To Left Lang...mentioning

confidence: 81%

Is human face recognition lateralized to the right hemisphere due to neural competition with left-lateralized visual word recognition? A critical review

Rossion

Lochy

2021

Brain Struct Funct

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The right hemispheric lateralization of face recognition, which is well documented and appears to be specific to the human species, remains a scientific mystery. According to a long-standing view, the evolution of language, which is typically substantiated in the left hemisphere, competes with the cortical space in that hemisphere available for visuospatial processes, including face recognition. Over the last decade, a specific hypothesis derived from this view according to which neural competition in the left ventral occipito-temporal cortex with selective representations of letter strings causes right hemispheric lateralization of face recognition, has generated considerable interest and research in the scientific community. Here, a systematic review of studies performed in various populations (infants, children, literate and illiterate adults, left-handed adults) and methodologies (behavior, lesion studies, (intra)electroencephalography, neuroimaging) offers little if any support for this reading lateralized neural competition hypothesis. Specifically, right-lateralized face-selective neural activity already emerges at a few months of age, well before reading acquisition. Moreover, consistent evidence of face recognition performance and its right hemispheric lateralization being modulated by literacy level during development or at adulthood is lacking. Given the absence of solid alternative hypotheses and the key role of neural competition in the sensory-motor cortices for selectivity of representations, learning, and plasticity, a revised language-related neural competition hypothesis for the right hemispheric lateralization of face recognition should be further explored in future research, albeit with substantial conceptual clarification and advances in methodological rigor.

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Section: Is Human Face Recognition Right-lateralized Due To Left Lang...mentioning

confidence: 81%

Is human face recognition lateralized to the right hemisphere due to neural competition with left-lateralized visual word recognition? A critical review

Rossion

Lochy

2021

Brain Struct Funct

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“…Right-hemisphere superiorities typically apply to rather elementary functions (see Corballis, 1983, for a review). LeDoux (1983) has claimed that right-hemisphere superiority is most marked precisely when it involves those areas that are opposite the language-mediating areas of the left, and in particular the parieto-occipito-temporal junction. His conclusion is that the manipulospatial functions subserved by this area are bilaterally represented in nonhuman primates, but are biased in favor of the right hemisphere in humans because of the invading presence of language representation in the left hemisphere.…”

Section: Generativity and The Left Hemispherementioning

confidence: 99%

Laterality and human evolution.

Corballis¹

1989

Psychological Review

241

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The question of whether there is a fundamental discontinuity between humans and other primates is discussed in relation to the predominantly human pattern of right-handedness and the left-cerebral representation of language. Both phenomena may go back at least to Homo habilis, 2-3 million years ago. However, a distinctively human mode of cognitive representation may not have emerged until later, beginning with H. erectus and the Acheulean tool culture about 1.5 million years ago and culminating with H. sapiens sapiens and rapid, flexible speech in the last 200,000 years. It is suggested that this mode is characterized by generativity, with multipart representations formed from elementary canonical parts (e.g., phonemes in speech, geons in visual perception). Generativity may be uniquely human and associated with the left-cerebral hemisphere. An alternative, analogue mode of representation, shared with other species, is associated with the right hemisphere in humans.

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“…Thus the consciousness associated with this form of memory Tulving calls, anoetic (not knowing) consciousness. Implicit memories that do not contribute to awareness include the self regulatory centers of a living system that regulate breathing, heart beats and body temperature [53]. In the absence of these memories there would be no consciousness in a human being.…”

Section: Concluding Remarks and Commentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring Consciousness

Sen

2016

Preprint

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In this paper a theoretical model for measuring consciousness based on experimental observations is proposed. Consciousness, the awareness of one's self and one's immediate environment, is defined, in this paper, in terms of the information about this awareness that is contained in or being processed by the brain. This particular information content in the brain is extracted from the correlation functions of brain waves observed in EEG measurements at N points. From these a time dependent probability function, P N (t) (Appendix B) is determined and then, Shannon's information theory formula, −P N (t) ln P N (t), is used to convert P N (t) to the information about awareness contained in the ensemble of brain waves (Appendix A). The sum, in the formula, is over the N points and the allowed range of brain wave potentials measured. Consciousness is defined either directly by this formula C(t), when it represents the information contained in brain waves at time t, or its time derivate D(t), which itself represents the rate at which this information is being processed. These measures are not localized; they do not depend on a single, immutable, hardwired detail of the brain but they do reflect subjective experiences, encoded by any one of a number of possible hardwired circuits. However, they are not clinical tools for measuring consciousness but rather represent ways to extract the information content of the brain from experimental measurements. Justifications, based on observational evidence, are given for the formulas presented.

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Cerebral Asymmetry and the Integrated Function of the Brain

Cited by 18 publications

References 32 publications

Is human face recognition lateralized to the right hemisphere due to neural competition with left-lateralized visual word recognition? A critical review

Is human face recognition lateralized to the right hemisphere due to neural competition with left-lateralized visual word recognition? A critical review

Laterality and human evolution.

Measuring Consciousness

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