ASSOCIATIVE PRIMING IN THE HEMISPHERES AS A FUNCTION OF SOA

The representation of associative codes in the cerebral hemisphere was investigated in two priming experiments where associated prime and ta rget words were independently projected to the left or right visual fi elds. The first experiment, using a stimulus onset asynchrony of 250 m sec, found priming in all visual field conditions, except that in whic h both prime and target were projected to the right hemisphere. A seco nd experiment was conducted to determine whether this absence of right hemisphere priming was due to an inadequate interval of time between prime and target. In this experiment, a stimulus onset asynchrony of 4 50 msec revealed significant priming in all visual field conditions. T he results suggest that lexical representations are activated more slo wly in the right hemisphere than in the left.