Elsevier

Cortex

Volume 18, Issue 1, April 1982, Pages 113-124
Cortex

Interhemispheric Effects in Short-Term Recognition Memory for Single Words1

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Abstract

Twenty undergraduate men participated in a short-term recognition memory experiment in which single words of four types, classified by high and low imagery value and high and low Thorndike-Lorge frequency, were each presented twice unilaterally to the right and left visual fields (RVF, LVF). Stimuli were projected either to the same or to the opposite visual field on successive presentations. Results showed that: (1) imagery value affected responses to initial presentations, but not to repetitions; and (2) the speed and accuracy of recognizing repetitions in the LVF were the same whether the stimuli had been presented initially to the LVF or the RVF, whereas speed and accuracy in the RVF were significantly poorer for words initially presented to the LVF than for words initially presented to the RVF. The latter findings are consistent with differential encoding or with asymmetrical storage of verbal information in the two hemispheres, but not with the hypothesis that the memory store for words is confined to the language-dominant hemisphere.

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1

This work was supported in part by a grant from the Biomedical Research Support Program, State University of New York at Buffalo.

a

Lillian Leiber, Ph.D., Department of Neurology, Erie County Medical Center, 462 Grider Street, Buffalo, New York 14215.