Abstract
Normal individuals performed two matching tasks. In one task, semantic processing, synonyms had to be recognized. Half the stimuli were picturable and half were nonpicturable nouns. In this task, recognition of picturable synonyms was found to have hemifield symmetry, whereas recognition of nonpicturable synonyms yielded a left-hemisphere superiority, indicating that semantic matching itself did not reveal equal performance of both hemispheres. It is concluded that picturable synonyms might be recognized either by processes of visual imagery, which pertain to right-hemisphere function, or by their phonological or phonic features, which are processed by the left hemisphere. The other task, shown in previous research to exhibit a left-hemisphere superiority, was to decide if two nouns (homophones) were equally pronounced. Here a distinct left-hemisphere advantage was revealed.
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Marshall, J. Personal communication, 1982.
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This study was supported in part by research grants from the Holderbank-Stiftung, Switzerland, and from the Stiftung für Medizinisch-Biologische Forschung, Switzerland, and in part by a grant from the Centre en Science neurologique of the University of Montreal, Canada.
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Rodel, M., Dudley, J.G. & Bourdeau, M. Hemispheric differences for semantically and phonologically primed nouns: A tachistoscopic study in normals. Perception & Psychophysics 34, 523–531 (1983). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03205905
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03205905