Do the hemispheres differ in their preparation for global/local processing?

It has recently been suggested that hemispheric differences for global and local processing already occur in response to visual pre-cues that direct attention to a specific level. However, in the supporting studies cue information was confounded with the form of the cues. In order to dissolve the confound, we compared event-related brain potentials towards cues differing in form with those towards identically formed color cues. As a result, hemispheric differences were found only for the former cue type. The data thus show that the mere cue information does not produce hemispheric asymmetries associated with global/local target stimulus processing.