SynthesisBrain structure & function2022
Is human face recognition lateralized to the right hemisphere due to neural competition with left-lateralized visual word recognition? A critical review.
Synthesis in Brain structure & function, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 88 citations in OpenAlex.
- A neuroimaging meta-analysis on social impression formation of stable characteristics.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2026Pooled it
- Segregation of Neural Circuits Involved in Social Gaze and Non-Social Arrow Cues: Evidence from an Activation Likelihood Estimation Meta-Analysis.Neuropsychology review · 2024Pooled it
- Transcranial direct current stimulation of the occipitotemporal cortex enhances identification of ambiguous faces.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- Deafness and Sign Language Experience Shift Visual Category Representations.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Faces and Word Forms Can Coexist in the Right Ventro-occipital Temporal Cortex-Evidence from Left-Hemisphere Perinatal Stroke.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Right-hemisphere lateralisation evidenced from the chimeric face task predicts self-reported social competencies.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Novelty, Category and Orientation Tuning for Printed Characters: A Magnetoencephalography Study with Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation.Brain topography · 2026Article
- Category specificity in holistic processing: Reciprocal face-word interference does not extend to body stimuli.Attention, perception & psychophysics · 2026Article
- Visual Cortical Lateralization in Activations and Functional Connectivity to the Sight of Faces, Scenes, Body Parts, and Tools.Human brain mapping · 2026Article
- The Emergence of Topography and Hemispheric Lateralization in High-Level Vision.Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) · 2026Review
- Computational single-neuron mechanisms of visual object coding in the human temporal lobe.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Emergence of Neural Face Selectivity in Infants Younger Than 4 Months Old.Infancy : the official journal of the International Society on Infant Studies · 2026Article
- Functional Connectivity in the Social Perception Pathway at Birth Is Linked to Attention to Faces at Four Months.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2025Article
- Differing patterns of face processing in infants at elevated likelihood of autism.Infant behavior & development · 2025Article
- Intersection of spatial and numerical cognition in the developing brain.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Article
- Left visual field bias during face perception aligns with individual differences in reading skills and is absent in dyslexia.The British journal of educational psychology · 2025Article
- A neural computational framework for face processing in the human temporal lobe.Current biology : CB · 2025Article
- Cortical neural activity during responses to mechanical perturbation: Effects of hand preference and hand used.NeuroImage · 2025Article
- Individual variation in the functional lateralization of human ventral temporal cortex: Local competition and long-range coupling.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- A study of brain function changes in patients with trigeminal neuralgia of different laterality based on rs-fMRI.Journal of oral & facial pain and headache · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The right hemispheric lateralization of face recognition, which is well documented and appears to be specific to the human species, remains a scientific mystery. According to a long-standing view, the evolution of language, which is typically substantiated in the left hemisphere, competes with the cortical space in that hemisphere available for visuospatial processes, including face recognition. Over the last decade, a specific hypothesis derived from this view according to which neural competition in the left ventral occipito-temporal cortex with selective representations of letter strings causes right hemispheric lateralization of face recognition, has generated considerable interest and research in the scientific community. Here, a systematic review of studies performed in various populations (infants, children, literate and illiterate adults, left-handed adults) and methodologies (behavior, lesion studies, (intra)electroencephalography, neuroimaging) offers little if any support for this reading lateralized neural competition hypothesis. Specifically, right-lateralized face-selective neural activity already emerges at a few months of age, well before reading acquisition. Moreover, consistent evidence of face recognition performance and its right hemispheric lateralization being modulated by literacy level during development or at adulthood is lacking. Given the absence of solid alternative hypotheses and the key role of neural competition in the sensory-motor cortices for selectivity of representations, learning, and plasticity, a revised language-related neural competition hypothesis for the right hemispheric lateralization of face recognition should be further explored in future research, albeit with substantial conceptual clarification and advances in methodological rigor.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.