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So where do YOU sit in the cinema?
 

Date: February 6, 2001
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In a recently published paper in Cortex, the UK-based international journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behaviour, Professor George Karev from the Bulgarian Academy of Science, demonstrated that right-handed people prefer to sit on the right-hand side of a cinema.  88% of 870 participants chose to sit on the right even when the cinema was empty.

Professor Karev has interpreted his findings in terms of the different specialisation of the two hemispheres of the brain.    He argues that, by sitting on the right, people would see the film mainly in their left visual field, and therefore process the images with the right brain which has a greater capacity to analyse emotions.

However, another brain theory can also account for the data.  British neuropsychologists have established that normal people tend to analyse the right side of space better than the left.  We all seem to prefer the right hemi-space to the left as a result of a different distribution of spatial attention in our brain.

One possible way to find out if Professor Karev is correct would be to ask people to sit in a room exempt from any emotional content – example a large waiting room,  a lecture theatre, even possibly the House of Lords?

The new Editor-in-Chief of Cortex is Professor Sergio Della Sala, Professor of Psychology at the University of Aberdeen .  Originally from Milan, Professor Della Sala is a specialist in neuropsychology, the study of the relationship between brain and behaviour.

ENDS

Further information on Professor Karev’s paper and Cortex in general from:

Professor Sergio Della Sala, Department of Psychology, University of Aberdeen,
Tel:  01224 272245, e-mail:  sergio@abdn.ac.uk
 

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6 February 2001
 

Notes to Editors:

Cortex is an international journal devoted to the study of the inter-relations of the nervous system and behaviour, particularly as these are reflected in the effects of brain lesions on mental functions.  It was founded by Professor Gildo Gastaldi in 1964.
 
 

University Press Office on telephone +44 (0)1224-273778 or email a.ramsay@admin.abdn.ac.uk.