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This research was designed to determine whether visual event related potentials (ERPs) recorded from over the two occipital hemispheres would indicate differential processing of apparently moving and stationary stimuli. Previous findings in the literature led us to consider a male-female comparison as part of our experimental design. Nine male and nine female subjects were screened for right-handedness and visual abilities (acuity, depth and phoria). Each participated in three experimental sessions over a three day period in which ERPs were recorded from O1 and O2 in response to stimuli presented in left, central and right visual fields. The main finding was that, for female subjects, right hemispheric derived ERPs were larger in amplitude than left hemisphere recordings for apparently moving stimuli presented centrally. Males showed no hemispheric amplitude differences. However, for male subjects, the left hemisphere ERP latencies to motion were longer than those recorded from over O2 with central visual field presentations. It was speculated that different attentional strategies in the two sexes led to the observed result.

The present study examined possible hemispheric differences in discriminations of different sizes of geometric shapes (rectangles) and different meanings of words, and determined whether left and right hemisphere derived visual event related potentials (ERPs) were related to performance. Eighteen right-handed subjects (10 male and 8 female) participated in two separate sessions conducted on different days. The visual ERPs were recorded from over left parietal (P3) and right parietal (P4) scalp locations. Subjects were required to make discriminations of three words (PARE, PAIR, PEAR) and three sizes of rectangles (small, medium, large). Each word and rectangle was singly presented for 40 msec at 1 degree 24 minutes of arc to the left and right of central fixation (LVF and RVF respectively). The major findings were as follows: 1) there were no performance and ERP differences between hemispheres in the verbal task; 2) the left hemisphere excelled in the spatial task; however, ERPs derived from the two hemispheres were similar; 3) subjects experienced greater difficulty in their discriminations of geometric size, as compared to words, regardless of field of presentation. Discrimination of size seemed to have influenced P3 (P300) latency, i.e., it was longer (both hemispheres) when subjects made size discriminations as compared to words. It was proposed that the more difficult discriminations involved in size discrimination required a greater time for stimulus evaluation and that this was reflected in the delayed P3 response.