Date of Award

2010

Publication Type

Master Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Department

Psychology

Keywords

Psychology, Clinical.

Supervisor

Abeare, Christopher (Psychology)

Rights

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Abstract

The present study investigates hemispheric differences in semantic priming across handedness groups. A lexical decision task was administered to 87 individuals, classified into handedness groups: consistent right-handers; consistent left-handers; and inconsistent-handers. Participants were presented with strongly- and nonassociated category members in a visual half-field semantic priming task. The hypothesis was that the dominant hemisphere would have an advantage for strongly-associated category members, and the nondominant hemisphere would have an advantage for nonassociated category members. This effect was expected to be determined by handedness, where consistent right-handers have left-hemisphere language dominance, consistent left-handers have right-hemisphere dominance, and inconsistent-handers have no hemispheric dominance. Although the expected interaction was not found, effects of SOA, word association, and visual field were consistent with previous findings. When handedness was re-classified by stated handedness, there was an association between handedness and visual field. The implications of these findings are discussed.

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