Immediate free recall of unilateral spoken word lists

Neither a group of pure right-handers nor a complementary group excluding pure right-handers showed much sign of a significant monaural REA for free recall performance, in contrast to the effect found by Turvey, Pisoni and Croog (1972) for probed recall performance by a group of unknown handedness. However other evidence was found of an influence of laterality in this relatively high-level task, deriving from the observation of a significant Ear x Speed x Serial Position interaction. In non-sinistrals application of dual-process memory theory to the results showed that the right ear retrieved a greater proportion of recall than did the left ear from the long-term store, while conversely and possibly as a compensation for this the left ear relied more heavily than the right ear did on the short-term store. This effect was replicated in the sinistral group, though in an attenuated form, as would be expected if it is a consequence of hemispheric asymmetry for language.