HEMISPHERIC PREFERENCE AND LATERAL EYE-MOVEMENTS EVOKED BY BILATERAL VISUAL-STIMULI

This study investigated the relationship between the direction of late ral eye shifts evoked by bilateral visual stimulation, on the one hand , and verbal vs visuospatial performance, on the other. In males a neg ative correlation was found between verbal relative to spatial accurac y and the ratio of leftward eye movements. No such relationship was fo und in females. Additionally, in males body mass index was smaller for those who displayed a greater ratio of leftward eye movements. It was concluded that visually evoked lateral eye shifts might reflect hemis pheric preference, similarly as lateral eye movements obtained during the widely used questioning procedure. However, the procedure used in this study for evoking lateral eye shifts seems to be free of some met hodological problems of the traditional procedure and is more easy to standardize.