WORD-NAMING DEFICIT IN NONFAMILIAL SINISTRALS - LATERALITY EFFECTS OF VOCAL RESPONSES TO TACHISTOSCOPICALLY PRESENTED LETTER STRINGS

Dextral, familial and nonfamilial sinistral Undergraduates, balanced by sex and all strongly dextral or sinistral, called out laterally presented words and nonwords. Vocal latencies, accuracy and field differences consistently discriminated between the three groups, dextrals performing best and nonfamilial sinistrals the worst. Subjects with a left field superiority had significantly smaller field differences and more errors than the right-superior, and a tendency to a higher birth stress index, which also characterized nonfamilial sinistrals. However sinistrals writing with an inverted hand position did not show greater field superiorities. Familial sinistrals appear closer to dextrals than nonfamilials, and either type of sinistrality, but particularly when non-familial and/or associated with reversed field asymmetries, seems detrimental to reading tachistoscopically-flashed letter strings and words in a student population. © 1979.