READING DIRECTION AND ATTENTION - EFFECTS ON LATERALIZED IGNORING

The effects of the scan for the first element in reading (leftmost in English, rightmost in Hebrew) on the ability of subjects to ignore irr elevant stimuli in one visual field more than in the other were invest igated. The hypothesis tested was that English readers would have a ha rder time ignoring irrelevant stimuli in the left visual held than in the right Visual field, with the opposite pattern predicted for reader s of Hebrew. The paradigm employed by Banich (Banich & Belger, 1990) w as used with two letter matching tasks. The results showed that when a n irrelevant letter was present, English readers responded more slowly in the right than in the left visual field, and Hebrew readers showed the opposite pattern (Experiment 1). This interaction did not occur w hen the irrelevant letter was deleted (Experiment 2). These findings a re discussed in terms of their relation to eye movements and covert at tention and to the use of bilateral displays in neuropsychological exp eriments. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.