Hemispheric asymmetries in the processing of body sides: A study with ambiguous human silhouettes

When required to indicate the perceived orientation of pictures of human silhouettes with ambiguous front/back orientation and handedness, both right- and left-handed participants perceive the figures more frequently as right-handed than as left-handed, which seems to indicate an attentional bias towards the right arm of human bodies. Given that past research exploiting the divided visual field paradigm indicated a processing advantage for contralateral body parts in both hemispheres, we tested whether human silhouettes with ambiguous handedness presented in the right visual field would be interpreted more frequently as right-handed compared with those presented in the left visual field. We confirmed the expected lateralised embodiment of ambiguous human bodies, in line with previous studies showing that right and left limbs are processed faster and/or more accurately when presented in the right and left hemifield, respectively.