Consistency of lateral eye shift related to preschoolers' performance on an analytical perceptual task.

Abstract

Studies by Bakan (1971) , Weiten and Etaugh ( 1 9 7 3 ) , and Gur (1975) have supported Bakan's (1969) suggestion that people who consistently shift their eyes to the right when asked a reflective question have a more dominant left hemisphere in their over-all psychological functioning. However, Barnat's (1974) research found no significant difference between righr and left movers' performance on Witkin's Embeddedfigures Test. Subsequent work by Weiten and Etaugh (1974) suggested that inconsistent eye-shift may be related to incomplete cerebral dominance, and further, to various intellectual deficits. The present study was undertaken to determine whether consistent shifters differed from inconsistent shifters in their performance on a flexibility of closure task similar to Witkin's. A sample of preschoolers ( 3 9 boys, 37 girls) ranging in age from 4.7 to 6.2 yr. were rated on lateral eye-shift. Three trained examiners each scored one third of the subjects. The examiner, seared in front of each subject, instructed h ~ m to Look at me while I ask you this question, then you can think about it. Questions such as What is your favorite kind of ice cream? were used to appeal to children of this age. Subjects were classified on the basis of 709; of their eye movements being in the same direction as 29 right, 22 left, and 25 lnconslsrent shifters. lnvalid trials, where the subject broke eye contact, accounted for 2.6% of the trials, non-movements for 15.0%, and valid movements for 82.4%. All subjects were given a hidden-pictures task of 1 0 simple figures embedded in each of three large pictures. Scoring was on the basis of figures correctly identified in a 1-min. examination of each picture. Reliability as assessed by Cronbach's alpha was 3 2 . The mean scores on the hidden-pictures task for each group were: right shifters, 10.83 ( S D , 4.96); left shifters, 9.95 ( S D , 3.25); and inconsistent shifters, 7.12 (SD, 3.69). An analysis of variance showed a significant difference between the means of the three groups ( P = 5.77, df = 2/73, f i .05) or performance on hidden-picmres test ( t = .32, d f = 74, p > .05) . Results suggest that inconsistency of eye-shift may be related to field-dependence and this might be the result of incomplete cerebral dominance. This hypothesis should be explored further, particularly in relation to the development of perceptual-cognitive styles in children.