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Interhemispheric Communication and Prose Processing

Prichard, Eric Charles

Abstract Details

2013, Master of Arts, University of Toledo, Psychology.
Previous research suggests that those who use their non-dominant hand for at least some tasks (“mixed handers”) have better episodic memory than people who use their dominant hand nearly all the time (“strong handers”). Evidence suggests that this is because mixed handers have greater access to the right hemisphere, which is active during the retrieval of episodic memories. Most of this previous research has focused on list learning. The present study extends these findings to memory for prose. Furthermore, this study investigated whether mixed or strong handers would be more susceptible to previously studied effects demonstrating that taking a specific perspective may affect what someone remembers from a story. One hundred fifty UT students were split into three groups of 50. All 150 were given a short story about two boys skipping school. However 1/3 were told to imagine they were burglars, 1/3 were told to imagine they were potential homebuyers, and 1/3 were given no such instructions. After a five minute lag time, during which participants completed a handedness questionnaire, everyone was given five minutes to recall as much as possible from the story. While perspective did affect what was recalled, perspective and handedness did not interact. More importantly, there was a main effect of handedness. As predicted, mixed handers remembered more from the story than strong handers. The findings suggest that degree of handedness may be a variable of interest to cognitive and educational psychologists who studying reading the processing of prose material.
Stephen Christman, PhD (Committee Chair)
John Jasper, PhD (Committee Member)
Jason Rose, PhD (Committee Member)
39 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Prichard, E. C. (2013). Interhemispheric Communication and Prose Processing [Master's thesis, University of Toledo]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1370359769

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Prichard, Eric. Interhemispheric Communication and Prose Processing . 2013. University of Toledo, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1370359769.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Prichard, Eric. "Interhemispheric Communication and Prose Processing ." Master's thesis, University of Toledo, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1370359769

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)