Self recognition and social awareness in the deconnected minor hemisphere

Abstract

Two patients with cerebral commissurotomy were tested with visual input lateralized to left or right half of the visual field by an opaque hemifield screen set in the focal plane of an optical system mounted on a scleral contact lens which allowed prolonged exposure and ocular scanning of complex visual arrays. Key personal and affect-laden stimuli along with items for assessing general social knowledgability were presented among neutral unknowns in visual arrays with 4-9 choices. Selective manual and associated emotional responses obtained from the minor hemisphere to pictures of subject's self, relatives, pets and belongings, and of public, historical and religious figures and personalities from the entertainment world revealed a characteristic social, political, personal and self-awareness comparable roughly to that of the major hemisphere of the same subject.