Relationship between attentional orientation and associative learning

This study presents experimental evidence for a relationship between attent ional orientation and associative learning. Learning to establish contingen cies between warning signals and subsequent task stimuli is a phenomenon wh ich we know from previous studies to be more associated with the left hemis phere. We investigated how hemispheric priming, i.e,, activating one hemisp here by directing attention towards the contralateral hemispace, affected b oth the rate and the extent of associative and nonassociative learning. Whe n attention was directed towards the right while perceiving a discriminatio n task stimulus, the rare of learning through contingency formation was inc reased since the relative activation of the left hemisphere was increased. Such a relationship was nor found for relative activation of the right hemi sphere following leftward orientation of attention.