Sex in lateralized tachistoscopic word recognition.

Although a generalized sex difference in lateralization appears to be established, a review of the literature pertaining to lexical tachistoscopic tasks suggests a dissociation by method: females show reduced visual field asymmetries relative to males in lexical decision and naming, but not in word recognition. Here 14 recognition experiments from the author's laboratory are subjected to meta-analysis, and the literature review is confirmed. There is no sex difference is visual field asymmetry for the task, although an overall field difference is found and statistical power is high to find the interaction. Possible reasons for the discrepancy with lexical decision and naming findings are discussed. One possibility is that stress on reaction time in those tasks produces a complex interaction between sex, activation/arousal, and hemispheric differences, which is not found when a less speeded method is used.