Abstract
Hemispheric asymmetry in word recognition: the effects of frequency and imageability. Although the left hemisphere is mainly involved in languag e processing, it is now well recognised that the right hemisphere also has some linguistic abilities. The aim of this work was to investigate the effects of two variables, frequency and imageability in word recognition when words are shown in the left or right visual field. In a lexical decision experiment words of different frequency (high and low frequency) and imag eability (concrete and abstract) were presented to normal subjects in the left or right visual field. The results show no interaction between the visual field and word frequency, but a significant interaction between the visual field and imageability. The latter result indicates that the right hemisphere has abilities to recognise concrete words but has difficulties in recognising abstract words.
