Does Sex Influence Laterality Differences in Recognition of Visually-Presented Kana or Kanji Words?

Abstract: The speed of recognition of Japanese Kana (phonetic) and Kanji (ideographic) symbols tachistoscopically presented either to the left or the right visual field in 20 normal right-handed Japanese subjects (10 males and 10 females) was investigated. A significant right visual field superiority for the recognition of both meaningful and nonsense Kana words was obtained, while there was a lack of laterality differences in recognition of meaningful Kanji words. The results indicated that Kanji processing is somewhat different from Kana processing. Sex did not influence visual field preferences regardless of the kind of verbal stimuli.