Differences between Language-Bound and Stimulus-Bound Subjects in Solving Word Search Puzzles

Abstract

Studies of dichotic fusion suggest that “language-bound” (LB) subjects perceive speech sounds through the abstract linguistic structure of their language, while “stimulus-bound” (SB) subjects can set aside linguistic rules and make accurate judgments about nonlinguistic events. In the present experiment, subjects of both types were asked to scan a matrix of letters in all directions in order to find words that exemplify a particular theme, e.g., musical instruments. SBs consistently found more words. Perhaps SBs simply have better spatial abilities, since the task requires scanning in eight directions. An alternative view is that the groups have comparable spatial abilities, but that LBs are preoccupied with linguistic operations: given a string of letters, they translate it into “phonetic sense” no matter what direction they happen to scan. For example, the highly pronounceable string TENIPS may obscure the fact that SPINET is spelled out in the reverse direction. Hence the two groups may differ in the relative amount of work performed by the two cerebral hemispheres: SBs are free to rely on right-hemisphere (spatial) operations to conduct an efficient scan, while LBs are more restricted to left-hemisphere (linguistic) operations and hence spend less time in effective scanning.