INSPECTING ASYMMETRIC PRESENTATIONS OF WORDS DIFFERING IN INFORMATIONAL AND MORPHEMIC STRUCTURE

Are laterality effects in visual word recognition a product of functio nal asymmetry of the cerebral hemispheres or a result of stimulus insp ection factors such as asymmetric eye fixations before and during visu al presentation, different movement time to asymmetric targets, an int eraction of the informative components, or morphemic structure of a ta rget with a drop in acuity with distance? Two experiments were conduct ed to address these questions. Experiment One recorded the inspection of prefixed and matched control words presented unilaterally for 200 m sec. Experiment Two displayed suffixed words and their appropriate con trols. The words also varied in their information distribution. Reader 's eye movements were monitored while they inspected the target words in preparation for a synonym judgement task. Measures of the location of the initial fixation on the screen showed that subjects were not bi ased to the right visual field prior to stimulus onset. When only thos e occasions in which the subject had correctly fixated the central cur sor were analyzed, a robust right visual field advantage was observed on many of the target inspection time measures, but no reliable differ ence was observed for faster movement time to the right visual field's target compared to that observed in the left visual field. Neither th e distribution of information within the word nor its morphemic struct ure affected the pattern of any inspection time measures. Consequently , such factors can be ruled out as threats to the hypothesis concerned with the functional asymmetry of the cerebral hemispheres. (C) 1995 A cademic Press, Inc.