Left face matching bias: right hemisphere dominance or scanning habits?

Megreya, Ahmed M. and Havard, Catriona (2011). Left face matching bias: right hemisphere dominance or scanning habits? Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition, 16(1) pp. 75–92.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13576500903213755

Abstract

A large body of work report a leftward bias in face processing. However, it is not clear whether this leftward bias purely reflects the dominance of the right hemisphere or is influenced by scanning habits developed by reading directions. Here, we report two experiments examining how well native readers of right to left Arabic scripts (Egyptians) could match (for identity) a target face that appeared with a companion to a line-up of 10 faces. There was a significant advantage for matching faces that appeared on the left. However, Experiment 2 found that the magnitude of this left face matching bias was almost three times weaker than the magnitude of the leftward bias shown by native readers of left to right English scripts (British). Accordingly, we suggest that the right hemisphere dominance for face processing underlies the leftward face perception bias, but with the interaction of scanning habits.

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