READING HABITS AFFECT ASYMMETRIES IN FACIAL AFFECT JUDGMENTS - A REPLICATION

Right- and left-handed native readers of scripts with opposing directi onality were tested on a facial affect judgment task in free vision. F aces with smiles in viewers' left visual field were judged happier pre dominantly by (right-handed) readers of the left-to-right script (Hind i) whereas a right field preference was observed among the right-to-le ft readers (Urdu) and among the left-handers; no preference characteri zed illiterate controls. These findings replicate Vaid and Singh (1989 ) and indicate that reading habits may influence performance even on o stensibly nonlinguistic tasks thought to measure right hemispheric fun ctioning.