Bisecting and behavior: lateral inattention predicts 8-week academic performance.
Converging evidence supports a left hemisphere role in defensive repression and sensation seeking. This led to the hypothesis that students with a relatively active left hemisphere would perform poorly during 8 weeks of a college class. The measure of relative hemispheric activation was the visual line-bisecting task given early in the course. The hypothesis was supported. Previous evidence that activation asymmetry is stable over time was supported because the single measurement of line bisecting was a longitudinal predictor of multiple behaviors. A temporal pattern of increasing correlation between the bisecting and performance measures favors a feedback repression model. Alternative explanations based on sensation seeking, subject-matter repression, and cooperation were considered but not eliminated.
Drake
Roger A
RA
Western State College of Colorado, 103 Crawford Hall, Gunnison, Colorado 81231, USA. rdrake@western.edu
D000124:Achievement; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology; D011446:Prospective Studies; D013997:Time Factors; D014796:Visual Perception