Consequently, when words in Latinate languages are displayed to the left and right of fixation in experiments, beginning letters are closer to fixation when displayed to the right and the difference this causes in the visibility of beginning letter information may help produce a LH advantage (for further discussion, see [41]).
Several studies have claimed that, when fixating a word, letters to the left and right of fixation project to different hemispheres and are consequently subjected to different processes.
Split-foveal processing in these languages would not produce the paradox of projecting beginning letter information to the RH because, when a word is fixated, beginning letters would now fall to the right of fixation, and so project to the LH (if the split-fovea view were correct).
Consequently, if a functional division in hemispheric processing exists right up to fixation, performance should be superior for words displayed to the right of fixation in extrafoveal and foveal locations.
As in Experiment 1, the predictions were straightforward: If a functional division in hemispheric processing exists right up to fixation, performance should be superior for words displayed to the right of fixation in extrafoveal and foveal locations.
At each grating location (i.e. left and right of fixation), the two consecutively presented gratings differed from each other in terms of phase, spatial frequency, orientation, and contrast.
Landolt C optotypes were presented for 100 ms on a calibrated monitor at an eccentricity of 5° to the left or right of fixation.
The bars were positioned against a black background with a white central fixation dot, with a distance of 3.35 dva to the left and right of fixation, and 2 dva above fixation.
After the cue, a fixation cross appeared for 200 1000 ms (randomly chosen), followed by the search array, which consisted of a target (a circle) and a distractor (a square) that appeared randomly to the left or right of fixation.
Scene stimuli were presented in the periphery to either the left or right of fixation, preceded by a central face cue whose gaze oriented attention to the probable location of the scene.
The two dots (0.7° diameter) were centred respectively 1° left and 1° right of the fixation bull's eye and the grating stimuli were centred at 5° of visual angle to the left and to the right of fixation (grating radius = 3.5°, contrast decreased linearly to zero over the outer 0.5°).
