ABSTRACT
Past research using handedness as a proxy for functional access to the right hemisphere demonstrates that individuals who are mixed/inconsistently handed outperform strong/consistently handed individuals when performing episodic recall tasks. However, research has generally been restricted to stimuli presented in a list format. In the present paper, we present two studies in which participants were presented with paragraph-level material and then asked to recall material from the passages. The first study was based on a classic study looking at retroactive interference with prose materials. The second was modelled on a classic experiment looking at perspective taking and the content of memory. In both studies, the classic effects were replicated and the general finding that mixed/inconsistent-handers outperform strong/consistent-handers was replicated. This suggests that considering degree of handedness may be an empirically useful means of reducing error variance in paradigms looking at memory for prose level material.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.