Laterality in temporal processing and spatial attention

第1部分：研究人员最近注意到非常“低水平”的感知不对称。例如，正常的参与者表现出可靠的左半球优势的时间处理任务的视觉，听觉和触觉方式。有越来越多的猜测，这些时间处理不对称的基础半球专门化更高的功能，如语言处理。正在进行的研究将使用侧化时间处理测试在神经学正常和临床参与者组中评估这些声明。这些测试将分为两大类。在第一类中，参与者将完成需要感知快速或快速变化事件的任务，例如双闪光融合，间隙检测，检查时间和共振峰转换的测试。第二类主要检验涉及时间间隔的区分，需要对两个时间间隔的长度作出明确的判断。除了提供对大脑半球专业化的潜在原因和性质的见解，该研究还可以告知语言障碍患者的临床治疗。第2部分：神经正常的人在空间注意力方面表现出非常强大和可靠的横向偏见。大多数人更关注物体的左侧。同样，当被要求判断大小、数量、亮度、颜色或距离时，法线通常会表现出明显的偏差。这些偏差的原因尚不清楚。这可能是因为人们倾向于从左到右扫描物体（比如阅读英语），或者因为人们更关注空间的左侧。看起来这些偏见也影响了实验室以外的人。在现实世界中，当人们行走时与静止物体碰撞时，他们往往会用身体的右侧碰撞。这表明人们低估了物体向右的接近程度。 当前提案中提出的研究试图确定这些偏见存在的条件以及它们是否影响其他现实世界的活动，例如驾驶。

Part 1: Investigators have recently been noting very `low-level' perceptual asymmetries. For example, normal participants exhibit reliable left hemisphere advantages for temporal processing tasks in the visual, auditory, and tactile modalities. There is increasing speculation that these temporal processing asymmetries underlie hemispheric specialization for higher functions such as language processing. The studies that are being proposed will evaluate these claims in both neurologically normal and clinical participant groups using tests of lateralized temporal processing. The tests will be grouped into two main categories. In the first category, participants will complete tasks that require the perception of rapid or rapidly changing events, such tests of two-flash fusion, gap detection, inspection time, and formant-transitions. The second main category of tests will involve the discrimination of temporal intervals, requiring explicit judgments of the length of two time intervals. In addition to providing insights into potential causes and nature of hemispheric specialisation, the research proposed could also inform clinical treatment of people with language disorders.Part 2: Neurologically normal people exhibit very strong and reliable lateral biases in spatial attention. Most people pay more attention to the left side of the object. Similarly, when asked to make judgements of size, numerosity, brightness, colour, or distance, normals usually exhibit leftward biases. The cause of these biases is unknown. It could be because people tend to scan objects from the left to the right (like reading English), or because people pay more attention to the left side of space. It looks like these leftward biases effect people outside of the laboratory too. In the real-world, when people collide with stationary objects while walking, they tend to do so with the right side of their body. This suggests that individuals underestimate the proximity of objects to the right.  The research proposed in the current proposal is an attempt to determine the conditions under which these biases exist and whether they influence other real-world activities, such as driving.