Spatial ability and laterality effects on a face recognition task

Abstract

This study examined the hypothesis that high spatial visualization ability is associated with superior functioning of the right hemisphere of the brain, using a face recognition task. It also explored whether individual differences in verbal ability play a role in face recognition. Accuracy and response latency analyses of same and different judgements yielded no evidence of the expected ability-lateralization relationship. Instead, low spatials were more sensitive to the visual field manipulation, and it was male low spatials who showed a left-visual-field effect in the experimental condition designed to yield the strongest right-hemisphere advantage. Individual differences in verbal fluency, but not vocabulary, predicted response latencies. For female high spatials only, verbal fluency also tended to be associated with the accuracy of their judgements. The results confirmed the need to examine the lateralization correlates of spatial visualization ability in the context of sex differences as well as the need to study further the bases of sex differences within high- and low-ability groups, particularly the high-spatial group.