Hemispheric asymmetries for accessing the phonological representation of single printed words.

The differential abilities of the cerebral hemispheres to access the phonological representation of printed words was investigated using a visual half-field paradigm in which participants performed a lexical decision task for target words primed by semantic associates (e.g., TOAD-FROG), homophones of words semantically associated to target words (e.g., TOWED-FROG), and unrelated control words (e.g., FINK-FROG, PLASM-FROG). At a short stimulus onset asynchrony (165 ms), significant priming was obtained for both semantic and homophonic associates regardless of visual field of presentation, although the effects were much less robust for the left visual field/right hemisphere. Thus, both hemispheres seem to initially have access to the semantic and phonological representations of printed words, but with the degree of activation being less in the right hemisphere. These results replicate those of previous studies indicating that both hemispheres initially have access to the phonological representations of printed words and are discussed in terms of the model of the hemispheres proposed by Chiarello (2003).Dept. of Psychology. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2005 .D66. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 44-03, page: 1512. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2005