Laterality, word valence, and visual attention: a comparison of depressed and non-depressed individuals

Thirteen depressed and 13 non-depressed college students attended to valence-loaded word pairs (euphoric/dysphoric, euphoric/neutral, and neutral/dysphoric) on a computer screen. Each pair was observed through a viewing box with a vertical partition, each word in a different visual field. As a prior-entry task (Titchener, 1908) the words were simultaneously replaced by colored bars. Participants indicated which color bar (left or right) was seen first. As predicted, identifications of color bars following euphoric words in the right visual field (left hemisphere) exceeded their identification in the left visual field (right hemisphere). Also, as predicted, the non-depressed participants made identifications following the euphoric word of a pair more often than did the depressed participants. No interaction occurred between laterality and participant classification. Implications for research and therapy are discussed.