Visual hemifield asymmetry for naming concrete nouns and verbs in children between seven and eleven years of age.
Three letter concrete nouns (Experiment 1) or verbs (Experiment 2) were exposed tachistoscopically in the right and left visual hemifields using a technique of bilateral stimulation with cued order of report. For subjects aged seven to eleven years, both types of word gave a small RVF advantage on words reported first and a larger RVF advantage on words reported second. This interaction between order of report and visual hemifield has been found by Young, Bion and Ellis (1980) to characterize stimuli which the right hemisphere is able to recognize. The absence of age X visual hemifield interactions argues against any progressive lateralisation through childhood, but may be indicative of the way the right hemisphere acquires its reading vocabulary.
D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics