Influence of word class proportion on cerebral asymmetries for high- and low-imagery words.
It has been claimed that the typical RVF/LH advantage for word recognition is reduced or eliminated for imageable, as compared to nonimageable, nouns. To determine whether such word-class effects vary depending on the stimulus list context in which the words are presented, we varied the proportion of high- and low-image words presented in a lateralized lexical decision task (0, 25, 50, 75, or 100% high image). Although the RVF/LH advantage for high-image words was unaltered by word-class proportion, a significant linear trend was obtained for the low-image words such that the RVF/LH advantage increased as the proportion of low-image words increased. We discuss the implications of these findings for models of how lexical processing is distributed across hemispheres.
Chiarello
Christine
C
Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, USA. christine.chiarello@ucr.edu
Shears
Connie
C
Liu
Stella
S
Kacinik
Natalie A
NA
D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D011932:Reading; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D012016:Reference Values; D014825:Vocabulary