Semantic category priming in the left cerebral hemisphere

The representation of semantic codes in the cerebral hemispheres and the interhemispheric communication of these codes, was investigated in two priming experiments where prime and target words were independently projected to the left or right visual fields (LVF or RVF). Nonassociated category exemplars were employed as related pairs in a lexical decision task and separated by a stimulus onset asynchrony of 250 msec in Experiment 1 and 450 msec in Experiment 2. Both experiments obtained priming effects when primes and targets were both projected to the RVF, but not the LVF. Semantic category primes projected to the RVF also facilitated responses to LVF targets, but no LVF-RVF priming was obtained. This suggests that semantic category information is relayed from left to right hemisphere, but not vice versa. The results are consistent with the view that semantic categories are represented in the left hemisphere.