Neuropsychologia 40 (2002) 1482–1487 Drawing and identifying objects in relation to semantic category and handedness Maria Pia Viggiano ∗ , Manila Vannucci Dipartimento di Psicologia Generale, Università degli Studi di Firenze, via san Niccolò 93, 50125 Florence, Italy Received 22 January 2001; received in revised form 17 September 2001; accepted 17 September 2001 Abstract We investigated whether the directionality of different objects and participants’ handedness affected drawing and visual object identifica- tion performance. In Experiment 1, 190 participants were asked to draw 246 pictures of objects belonging to different semantic categories. Results showed a preferential direction (leftward, rightward, or frontal view) for most of pictures. In Experiment 2, the directionality patterns found in Experiment 1 were verified in a visual identification task. Sixty participants were requested to identify pictures presented leftward or rightward. For some categories, the speed of responses was greater for pictures having the directionality assessed in the previ- ous experiment. The effect of handedness emerged for two categories of objects (animals and vehicles) characterised by two properties: asymmetry and motion. Findings were discussed in relation to the Motor Image Theory on the isomorphism between motor (drawing) and visual (identification) processes. © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Drawing; Handedness; Motion; Motor Image Theory; Visual object identification 1. Introduction Much attention is currently being paid to the relation linking handedness to the functional asymmetry of the cere- bral hemispheres. Handedness-related differences in the identification of visual stimuli (words, digits, faces, etc.) presented in the two visual hemifields would depend on the degree of functional hemispheric asymmetry, being stronger in right-handers (RHs) than in left-handers (LHs) [4,27]. The same hemispheric asymmetry hypothesis was applied to explain differences in aesthetic preferences as a function of the observers’ handedness. RHs were consistently found to prefer pictures with important content on right, while LHs preferred leftward-balance pictures or exhibited no directional preference [1,6,17,20,21]. Also in a categorical and co-ordinate judgement task RHs showed a lateralisation pattern, while LHs did not [15]. Recently, a different inter- pretation of the relationship between handedness and perfor- mance was proposed. According to the Motor Image Theory [14,19], the brain processes that are involved when specific movements are performed should also be activated in the ab- sence of the physical movements themselves. There should be an isomorphism between the structure of the movement and the structure of the image or mental representation be- ∗ Corresponding author. Fax: +39-55-2345326. E-mail address: mpviggiano@psico.unifi.it (M.P. Viggiano). cause of the same underlying neural mechanisms. For exam- ple, if the left hand is used to grip or draw an object, the rele- vant components of the object itself (the handle of a cup, the profile of a face, etc.) should be stored in memory with the same spatial position and direction they have when they are manipulated by the same left hand (the cup is being gripped, the face is being drawn, etc.). Martin and Jones [19] found a handedness effect on drawing the faces (left facing or right facing), while no difference emerged in drawing a bicycle. We wondered whether the Motor Image Theory and the isomorphism between drawing and identifying might be applied to semantically different stimuli. In fact there is converging evidence, coming from neuroimaging, neu- ropsychological and behavioural studies, that semantically different objects are differentially processed [5,12,16]. The present study was designed to assess (a) the hand- edness effect (if any) on preferred directionality in draw- ing objects that are semantically different (Experiment 1); (b) whether the directionality pattern in object drawing is reflected in the performance exhibited by LHs and RHs in identifying visual objects belonging to different semantic categories (Experiment 2). We expected that LHs and RHs will show a higher performance in a visual identification task for pictures presented with the direction (leftward or rightward) congruent with that one drawn in the Experiment 1. In the case of a reliable difference between LHs and RHs in drawing a particular category of objects (for instance, 0028-3932/02/$ – see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII:S0028-3932(01)00196-8