Visual field effects for processing content and function words

Abstract

This study investigated the processing of content and function words when input to the left vs right hemispheres. For both lexical decision and naming there was a larger RVF advantage for function as compared to content words: function words were processed more slowly than content in the LVF, but not in the RVF. These results do not replicate the previous report of Bradley and Garrett, Neuropsychologia 21, 155–159, 1983, and provide some support for the view that function words are less accessible to the right hemisphere. In a second, there was no difference in VF asymmetry when acceptability judgements were required for function vs content word phrases. Grammatically judgments, of any sort, may be predominantly processed the left hemisphere.