236 WHEN SEEING WITH ONE EYE IS BETTER THAN WITH TWO COWEY, A., LAWLER, K. AND BOWN, B. Dept. of Experimental Psychology, U n i v e r s i t y of Oxfor...
236 WHEN SEEING WITH ONE EYE IS BETTER THAN WITH TWO COWEY, A., LAWLER, K. AND BOWN, B. Dept. of Experimental Psychology, U n i v e r s i t y of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OXI 3PS, (England) The visual neglect that follows damage to the superior c o l l i c u l i known and not d i f f i c u l t
is well
to explain. The mild defects in pattern and movement
d i s c r i m i n a t i o n are more puzzling, given that the pathways from r e t i n a to s t r i a t e cortex are a l i v e and w e l l . Large c o l l i c u l a r lesions produce a curious stare, as i f the animal were p e r s i s t e n t l y looking at the horizon. I f so there should be d i p l o p i a f o r near targets. We tested t h i s and showed that monkeys with combined ablation of superior c o l l i c u l i
and f r o n t a l e y e - f i e l d s were better at l o c a l i z i n g
peanuts and at d i s c r i m i n a t i n g certain striped patterns when using one eye rather than both eyes. They were also grossly impaired at d i s c r i m i n a t i n g random dot stereograms~ as expected i f vergence is abolished or seriously degraded. F i n a l l y we tested ourselves on a movement d i s c r i m i n a t i o n task used previously to show that monkeys with c o l l i c u l a r damage have elevated movement detection thresholds. Our thresholds were s i m i l a r l y raised by gazing "through" the target at i n f i n i t y .
We propose that there is a simple motor explanation for some of the
so-called perceptual impairments that f o l l o w damage to the mid-brain visual pathways.
PERCEIVING EMOTIONAL CONDITIONS IN BRAIN DAMAGEDAND NORMAL PEOPLE DE BASTIANI, P., DI PALMA, G., MONETTI, V.C. AND PALMONARI, M.G. C l i n i c a Neurologica, Universita di Ferrara, Corso d e l l a Giovecca 203, Ferrara (Italy) C l i n i c a l and experimental evidence suggests that both the r i g h t (RH) and the l e f t hemisphere (LH) play a role in producing emotional responses, although a few reports have suggested a greater RH role in processing emotional input. This s p e c i f i c RH competance has been recently investigated by a number of authors studying the r e l a t i o n s h i p between the a f f e c t i v e components of language (prosody, emotional contours, gesturing e t c . ) and the a b i l i t y formation conveyed by these means.