ABSTRACT
Evidence is available for auditory and visual modalities, as well as a smaller body of information about somatosensory stimuli. Basic perceptual processes are probably the reason for the right field advantage found by S. Virostek and Cutting, and may have nothing to do with the lateralization of American sign language (ASL). All users of the sign language showed a right field advantage for legitimate ASL signs, but not for any of the other stimulus types used. ASL is a visual language, used by deaf persons, where hand signs are used in rapid succession for communication. Tests of static ASL signs have been reported to produced either left or right hemisphere advantages. Normal controls and right-hemisphere patients performed equally well, and could report the sequence when individual components had a duration of 200-350 msec. Left hemisphere patients required significantly longer components, of duration 550-800 msec.
