The effects of word orientation and imageability on visual half-field presentations with a lexical decision task.
Two studies examined the effects of word orientation and word imageability in a visual half-field procedure. The studies involved a lexical decision task in which items were presented in either a horizontal or vertical orientation randomly intermixed in Experiment 1 and blocked in Experiment 2. Overall, a RVF advantage resulted with horizontal items, yet no visual-field asymmetries were found with the vertical items. These results indicate that altering the orientation can affect visual-field superiority. It is proposed that the novelty of vertical displays leads to greater involvement of the right hemisphere. Imageability was related to performance only for horizontal displays; but there were no significant differences in imageability effects between the two visual fields. It is concluded that word imageability has little effect on visual-field differences, at least not for lexical decisions.
Howell
J R
JR
Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
Bryden
M P
MP
D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D011932:Reading; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology; D014794:Visual Fields; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*