Imagery in a commissurotomized patient

Abstract

A commissurotomized patient, L.B., was tested on several imagery tasks, in which the stimuli were flashed tachistocopically in the left or right visual half-field. On tests requiring the generation of images of lowercase letters from their uppercase versions, or the generation of the positions of the hands on a clockface from digitally presented times, there was a strong right half-field (left-hemispheric) advantage in accuracy, but a left half-field (right-hemispheric) advantage in reaction time (RT). On tests requiring the mental rotation of letters or stickfigures to the upright, however, there was a strong left half-field (right-hemispheric) advantage in accuracy, RT, and conformity of RTs to an ideal “mental-rotation” function when plotted against angular orientation. These data provide strong evidence that the right hemisphere was capable of mental rotation comparable to that of normal subjects; the left hemisphere, by contrast, seemed virtually incapable of mental rotation in the early testing sessions, and never achieved the proficiency of the right.