Categorical-semantic and spatial-imagery judgements of non-verbal stimuli in the cerebral hemispheres

A divided visual field task was given to two groups of normal subjects to investigate hemisphere differences in the processing of standardised pictorial stimuli. There were two conditions: subjects were asked to decide whether an entity represented by a picture was living or non-living, a task involving a categorical judgement based on semantic information, or, in the second condition, whether these depictions represented entities which were bigger or smaller than a cat. This latter task, it is suggested, requires visual imagery to compare spatial dimensions. The first, categorical task produced an LH advantage in reaction time. The second, imagery task, produced an RH advantage provided the comparison involved items whose sizes were relatively close to that of a cat. Furthermore, the size difference was inversely related to reaction time, only when items were presented to the RH. The data obtained are consistent with the notion that there are at least two systems for processing visual information, one specializing in categorical and semantic distinctions related to LH functions, and the other, specialized in spatial coordinates, an aspect of visual imagery, related to the RH.