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Perceptual asymmetries and handedness: a neglected link?

Healthy individuals tend to weigh in more the left than the right side of visual space in a variety of contexts, ranging from pseudoneglect to perceptual asymmetries for faces. Among the common explanations proposed for the attentional and perceptual advantages of the left visual field, a link with...

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Autores principales: Marzoli, Daniele, Prete, Giulia, Tommasi, Luca
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3938099/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24592250
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00163
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author Marzoli, Daniele
Prete, Giulia
Tommasi, Luca
author_facet Marzoli, Daniele
Prete, Giulia
Tommasi, Luca
author_sort Marzoli, Daniele
collection PubMed
description Healthy individuals tend to weigh in more the left than the right side of visual space in a variety of contexts, ranging from pseudoneglect to perceptual asymmetries for faces. Among the common explanations proposed for the attentional and perceptual advantages of the left visual field, a link with the prevalence of right-handedness in humans has never been suggested, although some evidence seems to converge in favor of a bias of spatial attention toward the region most likely coincident with another person’s right hand during a face-to-face interaction. Such a bias might imply an increased efficiency in monitoring both communicative and aggressive acts, the right limb being more used than the left in both types of behavior. Although attentional and perceptual asymmetries could be linked to right-handedness at the level of phylogeny because of the evolutionarily advantage of directing attention toward the region where others’ dominant hand usually operates, it is also legitimate to question whether, at the ontogenetic level, frequent exposure to right-handed individuals may foster leftward biases. These views are discussed in the light of extant literature, and a number of tests are proposed in order to assess our hypotheses.
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spelling pubmed-39380992014-03-03 Perceptual asymmetries and handedness: a neglected link? Marzoli, Daniele Prete, Giulia Tommasi, Luca Front Psychol Psychology Healthy individuals tend to weigh in more the left than the right side of visual space in a variety of contexts, ranging from pseudoneglect to perceptual asymmetries for faces. Among the common explanations proposed for the attentional and perceptual advantages of the left visual field, a link with the prevalence of right-handedness in humans has never been suggested, although some evidence seems to converge in favor of a bias of spatial attention toward the region most likely coincident with another person’s right hand during a face-to-face interaction. Such a bias might imply an increased efficiency in monitoring both communicative and aggressive acts, the right limb being more used than the left in both types of behavior. Although attentional and perceptual asymmetries could be linked to right-handedness at the level of phylogeny because of the evolutionarily advantage of directing attention toward the region where others’ dominant hand usually operates, it is also legitimate to question whether, at the ontogenetic level, frequent exposure to right-handed individuals may foster leftward biases. These views are discussed in the light of extant literature, and a number of tests are proposed in order to assess our hypotheses. Frontiers Media S.A. 2014-02-28 /pmc/articles/PMC3938099/ /pubmed/24592250 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00163 Text en Copyright © 2014 Marzoli, Prete and Tommasi. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Marzoli, Daniele
Prete, Giulia
Tommasi, Luca
Perceptual asymmetries and handedness: a neglected link?
title Perceptual asymmetries and handedness: a neglected link?
title_full Perceptual asymmetries and handedness: a neglected link?
title_fullStr Perceptual asymmetries and handedness: a neglected link?
title_full_unstemmed Perceptual asymmetries and handedness: a neglected link?
title_short Perceptual asymmetries and handedness: a neglected link?
title_sort perceptual asymmetries and handedness: a neglected link?
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3938099/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24592250
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00163
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