Cerebral dominance and attentional bias in word recognition.

This study investigated the role of cerebral dominance, functional localization, and attentional bias on the recognition of neutral and emotionally charged words presented unilaterally and bilaterally by a tachistoscope to the left and right visual fields of 42 left and 42 right handers. The major findings were: (1) Over-all, right handers perceived more words than left handers; (2) Although more neutral words were perceived, there were no interactive effects for type of word; (3) Unilateral presentation: LVF = RVF for left and right handers; Bilateral presentation: left handers evidenced a left visual-field advantage, right handers evidenced a right visual-field advantage; (4) Directional cuing did not magnify the existing visual field advantage but increased efficiency of recognition for words presented to the correctly cued nondominant visual field and decreased efficiency of recognition for words presented to the incorrectly cued dominant visual field. It was concluded that, although each hemisphere was equally capable of processing single words, cerebral dominance and functional localization interact with attentional bias to produce the observed differential in word recognition of the left and right visual fields.