Handedness and sex differences in selective interference of verbal and spatial information

The purpose of this experiment was to investigate handedness and sex differences with regard to the way verbal and spatial information is coded in selective-interference tasks. Left- and right-handed males and females were required to recall both letters and their positions in a matrix under three different kinds of interpolated conditions: visual, auditory, and noninterpolated activities. The results indicated that the selective-interference effect differed in right- and left-handers, whereas there were no differences by sex. Identity information had a dual encoding for both handedness groups, but it was relatively more biased toward visual encoding in left-handers than in right-handers; position information, however, was predominantly visually encoded--and to the same extent--in both handedness groups. These findings were interpreted as supporting the view that the differences in coding manner of right- and left-handers are related to differences in their hemispheric specialization.