Directional Scanning of Visual Stimuli

Effect of directional set of horizontal scanning tendencies of visual stimuli was studied on male and female subjects with opposite left-right reading habits. Forty English readers and 40 Hebrew readers (in each group 20 males and 20 females) were presented with horizontal arrays of letter stimuli (either English or Hebrew letters) and of nonletter stimuli (circle and bar patterns) for scanning. Half of the subjects were presented with the letter stimuli first (set condition), and the other half were presented with the nonletter stimuli first (no-set condition). The results showed that experimental set affected the direction of scanning of nonletter as well as of letter stimuli. This effect was usually stronger for males than for females. Differential directional effects were found for English and for Hebrew letters. Reading habits affected performance on the nonletter tests, and interacted with the directional stimulus effects on the letter tests.

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