Hemispheric differences for enhancement and suppression mechanisms during story comprehension

Although readers are able to follow the goals of a character in a story, little is currently known about the underlying enhancement and suppression mechanisms that occur in each cerebral hemisphere. In this study, participants read texts that mentioned a goal of a character, which was later followed by information related to the original goal, a new goal, or unrelated information. Participants then performed a lexical decision task to original-goal-related targets, which were presented to either the left visual field-right hemisphere or the right visual field-left hemisphere. When the original goal was repeated, facilitation was greater in the right hemisphere than the left hemisphere. When a new goal was introduced, the left hemisphere exhibited decreased facilitation for the original goal information. The current findings suggest that two separable mechanisms (i.e., enhancement and suppression), located in different hemispheres, may be involved when readers process goals during narrative text comprehension.