Abstract
The right and left visual fields each project to the contralateral cerebral hemispheres. The current study aimed to investigate the extent of the functional overlap of the two hemifields along the vertical meridian. We applied repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over the left and right occipital cortex to investigate whether the foveal representation of words is bilaterally represented or is split between the two hemispheres. Employing a lateralized lexical decision task, we first showed a double dissociation between the stimulated cortical site and performance; right visual field (RVF) but not left visual field (LVF) performance was impaired when the left visual cortex was stimulated, and LVF but not RVF performance was impairred when the right visual cortex was stimulated. Unilateral stimulation also significantly impaired lexical decision latencies to centrally presented words. These findings support the suggestion that foveal representation of words is split. We discuss future strategies for the use of TMS in further tests of the split representation account.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 341-362 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Journal | Visual Cognition |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 2003 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Please address all correspondence to: M. Lavidor, Department of Psychology, University of Hull, HU6 7RX, UK. E-mail: [email protected] This study was supported by the European Commission, Marie Curie fellowship grant, Contract No. HPMF-CF-2000-00787, an equipment grant from The Wellcome Trust, a travel grant from the McDonnel-Pew Cognitive Neuroscience Centre, Oxford, and by a visit grant from Brain awarded to M. Lavidor. A. Ellison is supported by the Dr Hadwen Trust and V. Walsh by the Royal Society. We wish to thank C. H. Juan for his assistance with the fixation monitoring procedures.
Funding
Please address all correspondence to: M. Lavidor, Department of Psychology, University of Hull, HU6 7RX, UK. E-mail: [email protected] This study was supported by the European Commission, Marie Curie fellowship grant, Contract No. HPMF-CF-2000-00787, an equipment grant from The Wellcome Trust, a travel grant from the McDonnel-Pew Cognitive Neuroscience Centre, Oxford, and by a visit grant from Brain awarded to M. Lavidor. A. Ellison is supported by the Dr Hadwen Trust and V. Walsh by the Royal Society. We wish to thank C. H. Juan for his assistance with the fixation monitoring procedures.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| McDonnel-Pew Cognitive Neuroscience Centre, Oxford | |
| Wellcome Trust | |
| Royal Society | |
| European Commission | HPMF-CF-2000-00787 |