Hemispheric Asymmetry of Visual Scene Processing in the Human Brain: Evidence from Repetition Priming and Intrinsic Activity

Abstract

Asymmetrical specialization of cognitive processes across the cerebral hemispheres is a hallmark of healthy brain development and an important evolutionary trait underlying higher cognition in humans. While previous research, including studies of priming, divided visual field presentation, and split-brain patients, demonstrates a general pattern of right/left asymmetry of form-specific versus form-abstract visual processing, little is known about brain organization underlying this dissociation. Here, using repetition priming of complex visual scenes and high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), we demonstrate asymmetrical form specificity of visual processing between the right and left hemispheres within a region known to be critical for processing of visual spatial scenes (parahippocampal place area [PPA]). Next, we use resting-state functional connectivity MRI analyses to demonstrate that this functional asymmetry is associated with differential intrinsic activity correlations of the right versus left PPA with regions critically involved in perceptual versus conceptual processing, respectively. Our results demonstrate that the PPA comprises lateralized subregions across the cerebral hemispheres that are engaged in functionally dissociable yet complementary components of visual scene analysis. Furthermore, this functional asymmetry is associated with differential intrinsic functional connectivity of the PPA with distinct brain areas known to mediate dissociable cognitive processes.