Journal
FRONTIERS IN HUMAN NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 12, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2018.00140
Keywords
bilateral symmetry; cerebral asymmetry; commissures; dyslexia; inferotemporal cortex; interhemispheric mirror-image reversal; mirror-image equivalence; symmetrization
Categories
Funding
- Marsden Fund of the Royal Society of New Zealand [12-UOA-158]
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Mirror-image confusions are common, especially in children and in some cases of neurological impairment. They can be a special impediment in activities such as reading and writing directional scripts, where mirror-image patterns (such as b and d) must be distinguished. Treating mirror images as equivalent, though, can also be adaptive in the natural world, which carries no systematic left-right bias and where the same object or event can appear in opposite viewpoints. Mirror-image equivalence and confusion are natural consequences of a bilaterally symmetrical brain. In the course of learning, mirror-image equivalence may be established through a process of symmetrization, achieved through homotopic interhemispheric exchange in the formation of memory circuits. Such circuits would not distinguish between mirror images. Learning to discriminate mirror-image discriminations may depend either on existing brain asymmetries, or on extensive learning overriding the symmetrization process. The balance between mirrorimage equivalence and mirror-image discrimination may nevertheless be precarious, with spontaneous confusions or reversals, such as mirror writing, sometimes appearing naturally or as a manifestation of conditions like dyslexia.
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