A right hemisphere advantage at early cortical stages of processing alphanumeric stimuli. Evidence from electrophysiology

•Asymmetry of early Visual Evoked Potentials (VEPs) in a bilateral RSVP task was investigated.•Exp.1 showed that the VEP asymmetry was decreased with unfamiliar stimuli.•Exp.2 showed that the VEP asymmetry was affected by biasing spatial attention.•Still, the VEP asymmetry remained present in each condition of the RSVP task.•The primary cause of the asymmetry is a right hemisphere advantage in perception.

This study investigates hemispheric asymmetry evoked by non-target alphanumeric stimuli in a bilateral rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. Our indicators of asymmetry are shorter latencies and larger amplitudes of the right hemisphere (RH) P1 and N1 components of visual evoked potentials (VEPs). This VEP asymmetry might reflect either a RH advantage, possibly in early perceptual processing, or for familiar stimuli, or for directing attention, or might be a paradoxical reflection of left hemisphere specialization in letter processing. Experiment 1 showed that the VEP asymmetry decreased, though remained present, with unfamiliar stimuli (Tibetan letters), as compared to familiar stimuli (Latin letters and Arabic digits). Experiment 2 showed that while leftward and rightward attentional biases affected the relation between hemispheres contra- and ipsilateral to attended visual fields, the VEP asymmetry remained independent of attention. As the most parsimonious explanation, the primary cause of the VEP asymmetry seems to be a general predominance of the RH in early perceptual processing.