Hemispheric processing of categorical/metric properties in object recognition

Participants indicated whether two sequentially presented objects were of the same category (between-task) or were identical (within-task). Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to examine cortical activation during the tasks. During the between-task, the left inferior parietal lobule was more activated than the right. During the within-task, the right superior occipital gyrus was more activated than the left. These results suggest that a hemispheric asymmetry, corresponding to spatial relation processing, exists for recognition of objects.