Lynn C. Robertson

Lynn Robertson has been studying how brain lesions affect spatial abilities for over 20 years, and her work has revealed some surprising facts about space and its role in visual perception. In this book she combines evidence collected in her laboratory with findings from others to explore the cognitive and neural basis of spatial representations and their contributions to spatial awareness, object formation, attention, and binding.

Space, Objects, Minds and Brains

Noam Sagiv

Synesthesia has implications for every major aspect of cognition: perception, attention, language, memory, emotion, and consciousness. It has recently received a lot of attention in the popular press and motivated a great deal of research and discussion among scientists. The questions generated by these two communities are intriguing: Does the synesthetic phenomenon require awareness and attention? How does a feature that is not present become bound with one thatis? Does synesthesia develop or is it hard wired? Should it change our way of thinking about perceptual experience in general? What is its value in understanding perceptual systems as a whole? This volume brings together a distinguished group of investigators from diverse backgrounds, who provideintriguing answers to these questions. Although each approaches synesthesia from a very different perspective, and each investigated synesthesia for very different reasons, the similarities between their work cannot be ignored. The research presented in this volume demonstrates that it is no longer reasonable to ask whether or not synesthesia is real-we must now ask how we can account for it from cognitive, neurobiological, developmental, and evolutionary perspectives. This book will beimportant reading for any scientist interested in brain and mind, synesthetes themselves, and anyone who might be wondering what all the fuss is about.

Perspectives from Cognitive Neuroscience

Synesthesia

Richard B. Ivry

Lynn C.. Robertson

Anatomically, the central nervous system looks remarkably symmetrical--from the relatively simple structures of the spinal cord to the extensively convoluted folds of the cerebral hemispheres. At the functional level, however, there are striking differences between the left and right hemispheres. Although popular writings attribute language abilities to the left hemisphere and spatial abilities to the right, differences in hemispheric function appear to be more subtle. According to Ivry and Robertson, asymmetries over a wide range of perceptual tasks reflect a difference in strength rather than kind, with both hemispheres contributing to the performance of complex tasks, whether linguistic or spatial. After an historical introduction, the authors offer a cognitive neuroscience perspective on hemispheric specialization in perception. They propose that the two hemispheres differ in how they filter task-relevant sensory information. Building on the idea that the hemispheres construct asymmetric representations, the hypothesis provides a novel account of many laterality effects. A notable feature of the authors' work is their attempt to incorporate hemispheric specialization in vision, audition, music, and language within a common framework. In support of their theory, they review studies involving both healthy and neurologically impaired individuals. They also provide a series of simulations to demonstrate the underlying computational principles of their theory. Their work thus describes both the cognitive and neurological architecture of hemispheric asymmetries in perception.

Lynn C. Robertson

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