[Analysis of concrete and abstract cues as a function of different hemispheres in the white rat]

In experiments on 92 Wistar albino rats performed by the motor alimentary method of conditioning, the following models were used: reflexes to relation, transfer of conditioned reflexes and invariant recognition of visual images. Functional elimination of the cerebral cortex was achieved by means of spreading depression. It was shown that in a rat population, reflexes to rather wide relations of areas of geometrical figures or lengths of straight lines are equally disturbed after elimination of the right or the left hemisphere. In conditioned reflexes to relation of areas of some other geometrical figures or of their multitudes, as well as in finer reflexes to relation of lines lengths, elimination of the right hemisphere disturbs predominantly the analysis of concrete stimuli characteristics, while elimination of the left hemisphere disturbs analysis of abstract characteristics. The transfer of conditioned reflexes to other geometrical figures is predominantly disturbed following the inactivation of the left hemisphere. Invariant recognition of visual images is more affected following the elimination of the left hemisphere than that of the right one. It has been suggested that the animals' right hemisphere analyses in the main concrete characteristics of the stimuli, while the left one--their abstract characteristics.