Hemispheric Differences in Global/Local Processing Revealed by Same-Different Judgements

This paper investigates the hypothesis that the left and right hemispheres of the human brain are specialized for processing local and global stimulus information, respectively. Also, functional hemispheric differences with respect to “same-different” judgements are considered. The hypothesis was tested that the right hemisphere produces faster “same” judgements than the left hemisphere, whereas the opposite holds for “different” judgements. Two matching experiments are reported, in which compound test stimuli were presented either in the left or right visual field. The results of both experiments support the hypothesis that hemispheres are differently specialized for global/local processing. However, there was no indication that the hemispheres differ with respect to “same-different” judgements.