Hemispheric lateralization in rhesus monkeys can be task-dependent

Two rhesus monkeys with transection of the forebrain commissures were trained on two grating orientation-discrimination tasks. In one task, the simultaneous orientation identification task, monkeys had to decide which of two simultaneously presented gratings was horizontal. In the other task, the temporal same-different task, the monkey had to decide whether or not two successively presented gratings differed in orientation. Both monkeys showed a statistically significant individual asymmetry in the performance on the same-different task with the left hemisphere supporting superior performance compared with the right hemisphere. No such consistent lateralization was found for the identification task. These results show that the demonstration of a behavioral asymmetry depends on the type of discrimination task performed and suggest that the asymmetry is related to interhemispheric differences in higher order stimulus (cognitive) processing and not to a lateralization of early visual processes.