Field dependence and lateralization of verbal and configurational processing

With tachistoscopic presentation, relatively field-dependent 18- to 30-year-old males were found to show a significant right-visual-field advantage in reaction-time in a letter discrimination task, while relatively field-dependent subjects did not show a significant hemifield difference. In a second study, relatively field-independent 18- to 30-year-old males again showed a significant right-visual-field superiority in reaction time to letter discrimination, and in addition showed a significant left-visual-field superiority in tachistoscopic face discrimination, while relatively field-dependent subjects showed no significant hemifield difference on either task. The results are interpreted as indicating a link between Witkin's concept of psychological differentiation and differentiation at the neural level, as manifested by specialization of function of the cerebral hemispheres.