The role of the cerebral hemispheres in specific versus abstract priming.

The present study examined specific and abstract priming for pictures in unilateral brain-damaged patients using a picture fragment identification task. Participants were 10 posterior right hemisphere (RH) damaged patients, 11 posterior left hemisphere (LH) damaged patients, and 30 healthy normal controls. Results reveal that RH patients perform specific priming tasks significantly worse than healthy participants (p < .005). There was a trend (p < .1) towards worse abstract priming in LH patients when compared to healthy participants. These results are additional evidence that specific priming depends on normal functioning of the posterior right cerebral hemisphere, while abstract priming depends on normal functioning of the posterior left cerebral hemisphere, and extend this finding from verbal to non-verbal stimuli.