Sex Differences and Asymmetry of Lexical Processing: Effects of Responding Hand, Stimulus Familiarity and Intraexperimental Experience

Abstract

The possibility that language processing functions are more nearly equally represented in the two hemispheres of women than of men was investigated tachistocsopically by means of a lexical decision task in which words and nonwords were controlled for familiarity, and exposed vertically in the left and right visual half-fields. Analysis of both unimanual reaction times and response accuracy revealed differences in asymmetry as well as differences between male and female subjects which tended to decrease as a function of intraexperimental experience. Theoretical and methodological problems associated with reaction time and response accuracy as measures of language lateralization are discussed.