PSYCHOLOGY MASTER'S THESIS ABSTRACT

Minnie Shea-Baker
MA-Research
December 1998

Interhemispheric Interaction: What Dictates Collaboration Between the Two Cerebral Hemispheres?

    This study investigated how the hemispheres of the brain collaborate, or do not collaborate, to complete a task when one hemisphere favors the task.  Past research has indicated that the right hemisphere is superior to the left hemisphere for performing mental rotation tasks.  Also, research shows that, when a task is sufficiently difficult or computationally complex, the two hemispheres find it beneficial to collaborate.

    Two letter-matching tasks were administered to 26 participants.  The non-rotated condition required participants to decide whether two of three letters were physically similar.  In the rotated condition, the same task was implemented with an additional mental rotation component added.

    Results showed that, for both tasks, distributing processing across the hemispheres led to more efficient performance.  Also, the left hemisphere was better at performing the mental rotation.  In general, the results suggest that collaboration of the cerebral hemispheres is the norm.

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