Lateralized word recognition: Assessing the role of hemispheric specialization, modes of lexical access, and perceptual asymmetry

The processing advantage for words in the right visual field (RVF) has ofte n been assigned to parallel orthographic analysis by the left hemisphere an d sequential by the right. The authors investigated this notion using the R eicher-Wheeler task to suppress influences of guesswork and an eye-tracker to ensure central fixation. RVF advantages obtained for all serial position s and identical U-shaped serial-position curves obtained for both visual fi elds (Experiments 1-4). These findings were not influenced by lexical const raint (Experiment 2) and were obtained with masked and nonmasked displays ( Experiment 3). Moreover, words and nonwords produced similar serial-positio n effects in each field, but only RVF stimuli produced a word-nonword effec t (Experiment 4). These findings support the notion that left-hemisphere fu nction underlies the RVF advantage but not the nation that each hemisphere uses a different mode of orthographic analysis.