Filogenesi e percezione: categorizzazione psicofisiologica di specie animali e oggetti

In the literature of neuropsychological and neuroimaging techniques have been highlighted functional dissociations in brain activity during the processing of stimuli belonging to different semantic categories, such as animals, objects, tools, faces, places. The purpose of the present study was to gather information about the processing of stimuli from different domains, in order to observe the emergence of conceptual knowledge and linguistic categorization linked to a perceptual path. Were recorded Event Related Potentials (ERP), especially N200 and P300 waves; subjects in the sample have performed a task of perceptual recognition of 56 images of animals, objects, and colored backgroundsThe animals, presented in different trials were grouped according to the phylogenetic scale in Pisces (F), Reptiles (R), mammals (M). Pictures of animals more “dinstant” from the phylogenetic point of view have activated the cortical processing differently than images of animals “neighbors”, regardless of familiarity with the stimulus presented. The right hemisphere seems to be more sensitive to differences related to visual stimuli phylogenetically more “distant” and are processed more slowly