Date of Award

1998

Document Type

Thesis

Publisher

Edith Cowan University

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Community Services, Education and Social Sciences

First Supervisor

Dr Paul Chang

Abstract

The role of the cerebral hemispheres in processing spatial relationships is outlined in Kosslyn 's (1987) theory that states that there are two separate subsystems for processing spatial relations: one located in the left hemisphere (LHem) that is more efficient at processing categorical information, and one in the right hemisphere (RHem) that is more efficient at processing coordinate information. To test Kosslyn's theory, this study manipulated two IVs in a within-subjects design, task: categorical and coordinate; and visual field (VF): left and right Male and female face stimuli were presented in either the left visual field (LVF) to the (RHem) or the right visual field (RVF) to the (LHem), Forty-four, right-handed participants (13 males and 31 females) made 40 categorical and 48 coordinate judgements, Separate two-way repeated measures ANOVAs were performed on both judgement types in both VFs for the two DVs of mean response time (RT) and percentage correct A significant interaction was predicted between VF and judgement type with a faster mean RT for the LFV /RHem on the coordinate than on the categorical judgements and a faster mean RT for the RVF/LHem on the categorical than on the coordinate judgements, However, although there were significant main effects for task on both RTs and percent correct, no other effects were found. These results do not provide support for Kosslyn 's theory that categorical and coordinate spatial relations are processed differentially by each hemisphere,

Download

Share

 
COinS