A Critique on Studies of Brain Lateralization

Abstract

Giorgio Vallortigara has been devoting his life to neuroscience and has made great strides in brain lateralization. The current paper mainly critiques his and his colleagues' two studies and one related study on brain lateralization, which have mainly covered individual and population- level asymmetry. The first paper claimed that the putative advantages associated with lateralization could not explain the specific disadvantages associated with directional asymmetry. They assumed that population-level asymmetries arise due to the need to coordinate behavior among individuals behaviorally asymmetric. The second article summarized recent experiments conducted by scientists and presented them in conceptual models. They explained the causes of individual brain lateralization from three main perspectives. The third paper concluded that the ESS (Evolutionarily Stable Strategy) remains the most potent and widespread evolutionary hypothesis to explain lateralization, and individual-level or population-level lateralization emerges as an ESS. This paper concludes that the orientation of individual lateralization has an essential impact on the stability of population behavioral asymmetry with ESS tendencies. Additionally, some innovative ideas and prospects for future research potentials are discussed.