Although the right hemisphere is thought to be preferentially involved in v
isuospatial processing, the specialization of the two hemispheres with resp
ect to object identification is unclear. The present study investigated the
effects of hemifield presentation on object and word identification by pre
senting objects (Experiment 1) and words (Experiment 2) in a rapid visual s
tream of distracters. In Experiment 1, object images presented in the left
visual field (i.e., to the right hemisphere) were identified with shorter d
isplay times. In addition, the left visual field advantage was greater for
inverted objects. In Experiment 2, words presented in the right visual held
(i.e., to the left hemisphere) under similar conditions were identified wi
th shorter display times. These results support the idea that the right hem
isphere is specialized with regard to object identification. (C) 2001 Acade
mic Press.