Lateral asymmetries in electrodermal responses to nonattended stimuli: a response to Dawson and Schell.
Recently, Dawson and Schell (1982) provided convincing evidence that words presented to the nonattended ear during a dichotic-listening task undergo automatic semantic analysis in the absence of intention or awareness. Because of its methodological rigor, this finding is important in the context of the long-standing controversy surrounding the preattentive processing phenomenon. However, we challenge the authors' suggestion of a right-hemisphere locus for this phenomenon. We offer a methodological basis for the findings and propose a countersuggestion of a left hemisphere, or at least bilateral, processing locus.
D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004007:Dichotic Listening Tests; D007839:Functional Laterality; D005712:Galvanic Skin Response; D006801:Humans; D012660:Semantics