Lip-reading and eye-gaze discrimination are functionally lateralized across the left and right posterior superior temporal sulci.

Sliwinska, MW ORCID: 0000-0002-5211-0311, Karapanagiotidis, T, Nikel, L, Simone, SL, Smallwood, J, Jefferies, E ORCID: 0000-0002-3826-4330, Gouws, A and Pitcher, D ORCID: 0000-0001-8526-2111 (2026) Lip-reading and eye-gaze discrimination are functionally lateralized across the left and right posterior superior temporal sulci. Cerebral Cortex, 36 (6). ISSN 1047-3211

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Abstract

The posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) processes information from the eyes and the mouth that support social perception. To investigate the laterality of how these mechanisms function, we performed three experiments on lip and eye-gaze discrimination. In Experiment 1, participants (n = 18) performed lip-position and eye-gaze discrimination tasks in static facial expressions while transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was delivered over the left and right pSTS. Results showed a double dissociation in which disruption of the left pSTS impaired the lip-position task, while disruption of the right pSTS impaired the eye-gaze matching task. In Experiment 2, participants (n = 16) performed a lip-reading task using dynamic video clips of a speaker while TMS was delivered over the left and right pSTS. Task performance was impaired when TMS was delivered over the left pSTS only. In Experiment 3, participants (n = 256) underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Results demonstrated that the left pSTS exhibited greater connectivity to language processing brain areas in the left hemisphere. In contrast, the right pSTS exhibited greater connectivity to visual areas specialized for face processing and spatial attention processing. Our study suggests that lip and eye-gaze discrimination are preferentially lateralized across the bilateral pSTS.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	eye-gaze; lip-reading; resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI); third visual pathway; transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS); Humans; Female; Male; Functional Laterality; Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Temporal Lobe; Young Adult; Adult; Discrimination, Psychological; Brain Mapping; Fixation, Ocular; Lipreading; Facial Expression; Photic Stimulation; 1109 Neurosciences; 1701 Psychology; 1702 Cognitive Sciences; Experimental Psychology; 3209 Neurosciences; 5202 Biological psychology; 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Divisions:	Psychology (from Sep 2019)
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Date of acceptance:	20 May 2026
Date of first compliant Open Access:	1 July 2026
Date Deposited:	01 Jul 2026 13:00
Last Modified:	01 Jul 2026 13:00
DOI or ID number:	10.1093/cercor/bhag088
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/28920

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