Guided Visual Search Is a Left-Hemisphere Process in Split-Brain Patients

Abstract

Previous research has shown that split-brain (callosotomy) patients search through visual displays twice as fast as normal observers when items are divided evenly between visual hemi-fields, as though each disconnected hemisphere possessed its own attentional scanning system (Luck, Hillyard, Mangun, & Gazzaniga, 1989, 1994) Results from 3 split-brain patients in the present study indicate that the ability to limit search to a relevant subset of the visual display is lateralized to the left cerebral hemisphere This ability to perform guided search was not shown in the right hemisphere, even when the search time in that hemisphere was superior to search time in the left Furthermore, guided search was observed for both hemifields in normal control observers These findings suggest that, as with higher cognitive processes such as language, strategic visuospatial attentional processes are preferentially lateralized to the left cerebral hemisphere The findings also imply that the callosum mediates guided search in the right hemisphere of normal subjects