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Attending to local form while ignoring global aspects depends on handedness: evidence from TMS

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Abstract

Our perceptions of the whole and of the parts of a visual stimulus are mediated by different brain regions. We used low-frequency transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to show for the first time that opposite, homologous regions in the two hemispheres are involved in attending to local parts for left- and right-handed individuals. The brain regions that focus on the 'trees' while ignoring the 'forest' are switched as a function of handedness.

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Figure 1: Typical display sequence showing congruent and incongruent compound stimuli.
Figure 2: Performance (mean reaction time (RT) ± s.e.m.) for global and local identification pre- and post-TMS trains across stimulus category.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a grant from the UK Medical Research Council.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Behavioural Brain Sciences Centre, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, B15 2TT, Birmingham, UK

    Carmel Mevorach & Glyn W Humphreys

  2. Department of Education and Psychology, The Open University Israel, 108 Ravutski St., Ra'anana, Israel

    Lilach Shalev

Authors
  1. Carmel Mevorach
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  2. Glyn W Humphreys
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  3. Lilach Shalev
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Correspondence to Carmel Mevorach.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Mevorach, C., Humphreys, G. & Shalev, L. Attending to local form while ignoring global aspects depends on handedness: evidence from TMS. Nat Neurosci 8, 276–277 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1400

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