Cerebral Lateralization and Cognition: Evolutionary and Developmental Investigations of Behavioral Biases

Gillian Forrester is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London’s Department of Psychological Sciences. Her research focuses on the evolution and development of cognition with a specialization in cerebral lateralization and motor biases in great apes and in neurotypical and non-neurotypical human populations. Kristelle Hudry is a Senior Lecturer in Developmental Psychology and Senior Research Fellow at the Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre, La Trobe University, Melbourne. Her research focuses on the natural course of development of young children with autism spectrum disorder and developmental plasticity through experience, including early intervention. Annukka Lindell is a Senior Lecturer in Experimental Neuropsychology at La Trobe University, Melbourne, specializing in the consequences of cerebral lateralization for human perception. William D Hopkins is a Professor of Neuroscience at Georgia State University. He has published over 330 research articles focusing on individual and phylogenetic differences in cognition and the brain of primates. Many of his research endeavours have considered the evolution and heritability of cerebral lateralization of function.

• Part 1. Evolutionary Perspectives: Visual/Motor Biases and Cognition1. Manual laterality and cognition through evolution: An archeological perspective2. Laterality in insects3. Motor asymmetries in fish, amphibians and reptiles4. The evolution of hemispheric specialization in primatesPart 2. Motor Biases: Social Ability5. Visual biases and social cognition in animals6. Mother and offspring lateralised social interaction across animal species7. Manual bias, personality and cognition in common marmosets and other primates8. Emotion lateralization in humans9. Split brain patients: visual biases for faces10. Cradling behaviour in young children11. Visual biases and social behaviour in humans and other primatesPart 3. Motor Biases in Typical and Atypical Human Populations12. Development of motor abilities in typical and atypical populations13. Atypical lateralization of motor circuit connectivity in autism14. Infant hand preferences and the development of cognitive abilities: An Evo-Devo approach15. Hand dominance and cognitive ability – meta analyses16. Asymmetries during grasping17. Degree of hand preference for grasping predicts speech articulation competence in children.18. Rightward shifts in developmental motor connectivity in individuals with ASD19. Speech lateralisation and motor control20. Manipulating strength of cerebral lateralization – avenues for intervention