Visual discrimination after lesion of the posterior corpus callosum

Abstract

Visual discrimination was studied in each visual field of a patient with surgical section of the posterior corpus callosum. Light-detection thresholds were increased nearly equally in right and left visual fields, suggesting that normal thresholds require the cooperative activity of both posterior cerebral hemispheres, mediated by the corpus callosum. In contrast, there was superiority in the right visual field in naming, copying, and matching letters, numbers, and colors, but not unfamiliar shapes. The results are attributed to a differential effect of experience on perception in each visual field. The right-visual-field superiority in learning to perceive arrays of letters, numbers, and colors may result directly from the superiority of the left hemisphere in speech.