title: Presentation of words to separate hemispheres prevents interword illusory conjunctions.
abstract: We tested the hypothesis that division of inputs between the hemispheres could prevent interword letter migrations in the form of illusory conjunctions. The task was to decide whether a centrally-presented consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) target word matched one of four CVC words presented to a single hemisphere or divided between the hemispheres in a subsequent test display. During half of the target-absent trials, known as conjunction trials, letters from two separate words (e.g., "tag" and "cop") in the test display could be mistaken for a target word (e.g., "top"). For the other half of the target-absent trails, the test display did not match any target consonants (Experiment 1, N = 16) or it matched one target consonant (Experiment 2, N = 29), the latter constituting true "feature" trials. Bi- as compared to unihemispheric presentation significantly reduced the number of conjunction, but not feature, errors. Illusory conjunctions did not occur when the words were presented to separate hemispheres.
authors.affiliation: Brain, Behavior and Cognition Program, Boston University, MA 02215, USA. liederma@bu.edu
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liederman
authors.forename: Y S
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Sohn
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*