Individual Differences in Hemispheric Specialization

This volume originates from a NATO Advanced Research Workshop held in Maratea. Italy from 8th-15th October 198~. Aims and contributions are described at greater length in the Introduction and the following chapters. It is hoped that this volume will provide a critical overview of hemispheric specialization in relation to individual differences, but one that is not intended to be comprehensive. Three contributions on this theme are made by authors who were invited to the Workshop but were unable to participate in it. The volume contains a critical appraisal of the differentially specialized functions of left and right human cerebral hemispheres in verbal and visuospatial domains respectively (formerly cerebral dominance). in relation to individual variation due. for example. to gender and handedness. Critical cross-comparison of several methods of assessing hemispheric specialization such as perceptual/behavioral. clinical/neurological. electrophysiological and "real time" methods of assessment of cerebral orientation have been made. Individual differences have been considered in relation to statistical concepts in the assessment of cerebral lateralization. Some emphasis has been placed on the application of these methods and concepts to psychopathology.

Inhalt
Defining The Issues.- Individual Differences in Hemispheric Specialization: Sources and Measurement.- Cerebral Laterality: Rube Goldberg at the Bauhaus?.- Implications of the Right Shift Theory of Handedness for Individual Differences in Hemispheric Specialization.- Is Cerebral Lateralization a Graded or a Discrete Characteristics ?.- Individual Differences in Cerebral Anatomical Asymmetry and Circulatory Asymmetry.- Individual Differences in the Anatomy of the Corpus Callosum: Sex, Hand Preference, Schizophrenia and Hemisphere Specialization.- Hemispheric Specialization and Regional Cerebral Blood Flow.- Individual Differences in Electrophysiological Asymmetries.- Individual Differences in the Asymmetry of Alpha Activation.- Age and Sex Related EEG Configurations in Normal Subjects.- Attentional Factors and Individual Differences Reflected in the EEG.- Longitudinal Auditory Evoked Responses and the Development of Language.- Differences between Anhedonic and Control Subjects in Brain Hemispheric Specialization as Revealed by Brain Potentials.- Hemispheric Differences in Relation to Smoking.- Interval Histogram Analysis of EEG Hemispheric Activity in Schizophrenia.- Individual Differences in Behavioural Indices of Cerebral Orientation.- Age and Sex Differences in Lateral Asymmetries to Visual and Tactile Stimuli.- Estimating Cerebral Asymmetry and Interhemispheric Transmission Time from Individual Differences in Bimanual Response to Lateralized Stimuli.- Self-report of Neuropsychological Dimensions of self-control.- Handwriting Posture and Cerebral Organization.- Asymmetries in Psychopathology and Individual Differences.- Individual Differences in Dynamic Process Asymmetries in the Normal and Pathological Brain.- The Evolving of the Homeostatic Brain: NeuropsychologicalEvidence.- An Argument concerning Schizophrenia: the Left Hemisphere Drains the Swamp.- Cerebral Laterality & Schizophrenia: a Review of the Interhemispheric Disconnection Hypothesis.- Individual Differences in Cerebral Lateralization: Homeostatic Brain Functions of Schizophrenics.- Cerebral Laterality and Psychopathic Disorders.- Contributors.