Abstract
The relationship between visuospatial attention and paw preference was investigated in domestic dogs. Visuospatial attention was evaluated using a food detection task that closely matches the so-called “cancellation” task used in human studies. Paw preference was estimated by quantifying the dog’s use of forepaws to hold a puzzle feeder device (namely the “Kong”) while eating its content. Results clearly revealed a strong relationship between visuospatial attention bias and motor laterality, with a left-visuospatial bias in the left-pawed group, a right-visuospatial bias in the right-pawed group and with the absence of significant visuospatial attention bias in ambi-pawed subjects. The current findings are the first evidence for the presence of a relationship between motor lateralization and visuospatial attentional mechanisms in a mammal species besides humans.
Highlights
It is well established that there is a complementary specialization of the two sides of the brain in terms of spatial attention, so that the right hemisphere processes information from the left visual field, and the left hemisphere processes information from the right visual field[1,2]
We investigated the correlation between visuospatial bias and paw preference to establish whether motor lateralization could be related to the development and control of spatial attention resources
Lateralization of spatial attention has been reported in humans and birds that primarily attend to visual items in the left side of the space, suggesting right hemisphere superiority in the control of visuospatial function[8,11]
Summary
It is well established that there is a complementary specialization of the two sides of the brain in terms of spatial attention, so that the right hemisphere processes information from the left visual field, and the left hemisphere processes information from the right visual field[1,2]. Left hemispatial neglect caused by damage to the right hemisphere occurs more than right hemispatial neglect due to left hemisphere stroke and asymmetries in recovery time show that right spatial neglect resolves more quickly than left (in other words, a right functionally-intact hemisphere can compensate for damaged left hemispheric spatial functions)[5,6,7]. Taken together, these findings supported the hypothesis of a right hemispheric advantage in the control of spatial attention resources[8]. During an auditory spatial localization task, Bareham et al.[2] reported an opposite lateralized pattern of shift in attention associated with drowsiness in a population of 26 right-handed and 26 non right-handed healthy humans, suggesting that the relationship of handedness with hemispheric lateralization for attention is task-dependent
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