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The effect of response mode on lateralized lexical decision performance
1University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA. sweems@cs.umd.edu
Neuropsychologia
|February 15, 2005
Summary
Response strategies in lexical decision tasks do not alter hemispheric specialization. The visual half-field, not response hand, critically determines the deciding hemisphere and indexes brain specialization.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Psycholinguistics
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Lateralized lexical decision tasks investigate hemispheric specialization.
- Response programming, or post-lexical decision making, is less explored regarding its influence on laterality effects.
- Previous research suggests visual field manipulations impact laterality more than response hand manipulations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effect of different response programming strategies on lateralized lexical decision.
- To determine if response hand manipulations influence hemispheric specialization and lexical decision task effects.
- To clarify the role of response mode versus visual field in brain lateralization.
Main Methods:
- A between-subjects design compared four response conditions: unimanual, bimanual, congruent visual field/response hand, and confounded response hand/target lexicality.
- Participants performed a lateralized lexical decision task under these varied response conditions.
- Statistical analyses examined hemispheric specialization and interaction effects across conditions.
Main Results:
- Hemispheric specialization and interaction effects remained consistent across all response conditions, despite differing response requirements.
- Some response manipulations reduced the statistical power to detect laterality effects.
- Left hemisphere specialization and bilateral lexicality priming effects (interhemispheric transfer) were robust.
- The target visual half-field, not the response mode, was critical for determining the deciding hemisphere.
Conclusions:
- Lateralized response modes do not determine or reflect the laterality of decision processes in lexical decision tasks.
- Hemispheric specialization and interhemispheric transfer effects are robust to variations in late-occurring response processes.
- The visual half-field is a critical determinant of hemispheric involvement and a sensitive index of brain lateralization and interhemispheric transfer.