Lateral eye movements as indicators of processing strategies in paired-associate learning: their effect on recall, recognition, and error type.

Subjects, classified as left- or right-movers on the basis of their lateral eye movements, were presented with paired-associates designed to elicit processing by either the left hemisphere (low-imagery synonyms) or the right hemisphere (high-imagery rhymes), followed by both recall and recognition tests. While recall of high-imagery pairs exceeded that of low-imagery pairs, there were no differences in recognition between the two types of paired-associates. There were no differences in retention between left- and right-movers, suggesting that if these groups differ in cognitive style, such differences may not be reflected in measures of information retention. The types of errors the groups made appeared to be influenced more by differences in information processing strategies.