Are hemispheric strategy differences independent of the level of performance?

Abstract

Studies requiring identification of consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) nonwords have suggested that attention is distributed more slowly or sequentially across the letters when they are presented to the right hemisphere than to the left hemisphere. Two experiments investigated whether hemispheric differences in processing strategy would be reduced with reductions of hemispheric differences in accuracy. The magnitude of visual field differences in accuracy was controlled by manipulating exposure duration, and the effect was observed on visual field differences in processing strategy. For both CVC identification (Experiment 1) and identification of nonletter symbols (Experiment 2), hemispheric strategy differences were independent of differences in accuracy. Both quantitative and qualitative hemispheric differences in processing visual displays appear to depend on the nature of the stimuli and the nature of the processes they invoke.