08 Cognitive Psychology: Module 17

Module 17: Hemispheric Distribution We now turn to the question of how the brain is specialized to store knowledge. In particular, what kind of knowledge is present in each hemisphere. These questions can be subsumed under the topic of hemispheric specialization (or lateralization of processing), which looks at the differences in processing between the two hemispheres of the human brain. Differences between the hemispheres can be traced back to as long as 3.5 million years ago (Corballis, 1989). Evidence for this are fossils of australopithecines (which is an ancient ancestor of homo sapiens). Because differences have been present for so long and survived the natural selection, they must be useful in some way for our cognitive processes.