VERBAL-TO-MANUAL AND MANUAL-TO-VERBAL DUAL-TASK INTERFERENCE IN LEFT-HANDED AND RIGHT-HANDED ADULTS

Verbal-manual interference was investigated with 80 students who were divided into four groups by sex and hand preference. Unilateral finger -tapping was measured during no-load conditions and during two concurr ent tasks of word reading (aloud) and sentence reading (silent). Durin g concurrent tasks, no selective interference effects for the preferre d hand were found; however, when participants were classified accordin g to consistent handedness instead of hand preference, consistent righ t-handers exhibited selective right-hand tapping interference during c oncurrent word reading, whereas consistent left-handers showed general ized interference. During concurrent sentence reading, men showed sele ctive right-hand interference, irrespective of handedness. The influen ce of tapping on word reading was also examined. Concurrent tapping lo wered word-reading performance substantially, showing that finger-tapp ing and word reading interfered reciprocally.