Visual field asymmetries for pattern processing are present in infancy. A comment on T. Hatta's study on children's performances

From a study on 4 to 6 year-old children, Hatta (Hatta, Neuropyschologia 28, 1053-1062, 1990) concludes that (a) a left visual-field advantage develops at age 4 to 5 years in visuo-spatial stimulus recognition, and (b) since both the right visual-field advantage for verbal and the left visual-field advantage for visuo-spatial material develop at the same age, there is no support for the claim that the left and right hemispheres develop differentially. We contest these conclusions on the basis of our own infant studies which have shown a right visual-field advantage in 4 to 9 month-old infants for individual face recognition and more recently, for some aspects of visual patterns.