TY - JOUR
T1 - Hemispheric asymmetry in memory search for four-letter names and human faces
AU - O'Boyle, Michael W.
N1 - Funding Information:
Portions of this manuscript were submitted to the Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, as partial requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. This research was supported in part by a grant from Sigma Xi to the author and a grant from the National Science Foundation (BNS79-24445) to Dr. Joseph B. Hellige. Reprint requests should be addressed to Dr. Michael W. O’Boyle, Department of Psychology, Iowa State University of Science and Technology, Ames, Iowa 50011.
PY - 1985/1
Y1 - 1985/1
N2 - Two memory search experiments were conducted using vertically oriented four-letter names and human faces as stimuli. Subjects were required to indicate as quickly and as accurately as possible whether or not a single probe stimulus (presented for 150 msec to either the left or right visual field) was contained in a set of 2, 3, 4, or 5 items being held in short-term memory. The probe stimuli were presented alone (clear condition) or centrally embedded in a matrix of dots (degraded condition). In Experiment 1 (involving names), a right visual field/left hemisphere advantage was obtained and pinpointed at the encoding stage rather than at the memory comparison stage of the information-processing system. For Experiment 2 (involving human faces), no hemispheric advantage was readily observed. In each experiment, both the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere employed an abstract memory comparison operation from which the effects of probe degradation have been removed. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for various models of hemispheric asymmetry.
AB - Two memory search experiments were conducted using vertically oriented four-letter names and human faces as stimuli. Subjects were required to indicate as quickly and as accurately as possible whether or not a single probe stimulus (presented for 150 msec to either the left or right visual field) was contained in a set of 2, 3, 4, or 5 items being held in short-term memory. The probe stimuli were presented alone (clear condition) or centrally embedded in a matrix of dots (degraded condition). In Experiment 1 (involving names), a right visual field/left hemisphere advantage was obtained and pinpointed at the encoding stage rather than at the memory comparison stage of the information-processing system. For Experiment 2 (involving human faces), no hemispheric advantage was readily observed. In each experiment, both the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere employed an abstract memory comparison operation from which the effects of probe degradation have been removed. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for various models of hemispheric asymmetry.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0021775607&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/0278-2626(85)90057-0
DO - 10.1016/0278-2626(85)90057-0
M3 - Article
C2 - 4027052
AN - SCOPUS:0021775607
SN - 0278-2626
VL - 4
SP - 104
EP - 132
JO - Brain and Cognition
JF - Brain and Cognition
IS - 1
ER -