Body asymmetry affects conjugate lateral eye movement
A. Harvey Baker
IN THE PRESENT ARTICLE, we explored the hypothesis that asymmetry of a respondent’s body position affects the direction of conjugate lateral eye movement (CLEM). Before we present the hypothesis, we (a) describe what social psychologists have known about patterning of eye gaze during social discourse, (b) specify what is meant by CLEM, (c) summarize CLEM research on individual differences, (d) summarize experimental research on CLEM (both of which assessed CLEM as a putative index of hemisphericity), and (e) review previous research on the effect of asymmetrical stimulation on CLEM.
Researchers have studied the sequential patterning of people looking at and looking away from one another during social interaction (Argyle & Cook, 1976). Kendon (1967) indicated that it has been well documented that during conversation, people look at others more when they are listening than they do when they are speaking and that when it is their turn to speak, they will break gaze before starting to speak. Ehrlichman and Weinberger (1978) noted, “This pattern is very clearly seen when people are asked questions: They tend to look at the questioner during the question and then look away when they answer” (p. 1081).
In that context, we can define CLEM as follows: When A asks B a question during shared eye gaze, if the question is one that does not require simple factual information (e.g., “What is your name?”) but one that requires some reflection, (1) then B typically averts his or her eyes rightward or leftward at the end of the question. That aversion of the eyes is referred to in the literature as conjugate lateral eye movement (CLEM).
Kendon argued that that pattern of shifting gaze provided a system of interpersonal cues that helped regulate conversational turn-taking. Ehrlichman (1981, 1984) suggested that that patterning of shifting gaze also met a “… need to reduce the distraction of the other person’s face during speech planning, which was assumed to be more cognitively effortful than is listening” (1981, p. 1). Argyle and Cook also reported that gaze aversion and eye contact are related to aggression dominance, affiliation, and submission.
Previous CLEM Findings
Day (1964) directed the attention of psychologists to the possible importance of the right versus left directionality of shifts in eye gaze. He believed that most people could be characterized as either “left movers” (a person with most CLEM movements to the left) or “right movers” (a person with most CLEM movements to the right). However, that characterization is oversimplified because there is also a moderately sized “middle” group. That can be seen in Figure 1 of Ehrlichman and Weinberger (1978). That figure shows that the distribution of CLEM scores is not normal but relatively flat. However, sizable numbers of people can still reasonably be classified as left movers or right movers. Depending on the criterion one uses (65-80% consistency has often been used), 20-40% can be classified as right movers, 2040% as left movers, and 20450% as bidirectional.
Some CLEM studies have addressed methodological issues. For example, researchers in two studies reported an effect for variation in participant-to-experimenter distance (Jamieson & Sellick, 1985; Lenhart, 1985). Other researchers (e.g., Gur, Gur, & Harris, 1975; Gumm, Walker, & Day, 1982) reported an effect of variation in the location of the questioner (behind vs. in front of the participant), though such an effect has not always been found (O’Gorman & Siddle, 1981).
One substantive focus of CLEM research has been on individual differences in the perceptual style and personality correlates of left-mover versus right-mover status. A hypothesis offered by Bakan (1969) helped shape that correlational research. He hypothesized that the direction of CLEM (right vs. left) constituted an index of hemispheric asymmetry, with greater cognitive and physiological activity in the hemisphere contralateral to the direction of CLEM. Thus, people who were classified as right movers would show a preferred mode of cognitive processing in which left-hemisphere activity would predominate, whereas people who were classified as left movers would show a preferred mode in which right-hemisphere activity would predominate (see also Ehrlichman & Weinberger, 1978, and Beaumont et al., 1984).
Relevant findings showed that (a) left movers were more attentive to inner feelings and experience than were right movers (Meskin & Singer, 1974); (b) in a task involving visceral perception, male left movers were better able to detect their own heart beat than were male right movers (Hantas, Katkin, & Reed, 1984); (c) there was a tendency for left movement in a participant to be correlated with a greater number of dreams being recalled (e.g., LeBoeuf, McKay, & Clarke, 1983-84), though that relationship was significantly larger for males than it was for females (Van Nuys, 1984); and (d) male left movers showed greater susceptibility to hypnosis than did male right movers (Bakan, 1969; Bakan & Svorad, 1969; Gur & Gur, 1974; Morgan, McDonald, & McDonald, 1971).
Kinsbourne (1972, 1973, 1974) and Kocel, Galin, Ornstein, and Merrin (1972) offered a different but related hypothesis, which shaped a second substantive line of experimental research. According to that hypothesis, when one hemisphere is engaged by the cognitive task at hand (e.g., when verbal content engages the left hemisphere of most people), it results in CLEM in the contralateral direction (in this example, to the right). The findings of a number of studies supported that hypothesis (e.g., Gur, Gur, & Harris, 1975; Kinsbourne, 1972; Kocel et al.; Schwartz, Davidson, & Maer, 1975) when they demonstrated that there were more CLEMs to the right for verbal questions and more CLEMs to the left for spatial questions.
Although active research interest in CLEM continues (e.g., Galluscio & Paradzinski, 1995; Kelley & Coursey, 1992; Parker, Taylor, & Bagby, 1992; Schneider, Heimann, Bartels, & Birbaumer, 1992; Struthers, Charlton, & Bakan, 1992), most of the studies on the correlational and experimental lines of research were done earlier and were encompassed in two extensive reviews–one by Beaumont et al. (1984), and a two-part review by Ehrlichman (1984) and Ehrlichman and Weinberger (1978). In reference to the correlational research that was inspired by Bakan’s hypothesis, Ehrlichman and Weinberger concluded that “… variables that ought to correlate with CLEM patterns if the latter are indicators of hemisphericity tend not to, and variables that do correlate with CLEM patterns are only tangentially related to hemispheric asymmetry” (p. 1096). Beaumont et al. reviewed a number of additional correlational studies that appeared after the review by Ehrlichman and Weinberger, and they reached a similar conclusion. The failure by McEvaddy-Cantalupo (1994) to find cross-situational consistency in the classification of right movers versus left movers supported that conclusion.
Asymmetrical Stimulation and CLEM
Earlier studies that focused on the possible effects of asymmetrical stimulation on the direction of CLEM generally failed to show significant effects. Meskin and Singer (1974) reported that variation in the location of a painting (on the experimenter’s left or right) had no effect on the direction of CLEM. Libby and Yaklevich (1973) assessed CLEM in a room in which the door was to the left of participant, and they reported more left CLEM than right CLEM. Because they did not include a condition in which the door was to the right of the participant, the interpretation of that result is equivocal. Rodin and Singer (1976) found that the addition of a confederate seated to the right or left of the experimenter affected the CLEM of obese participants, but not that of normal-weight participants. That finding was consistent with that reported by Schwartz et al. (1975). Ehrlichman and Weinberger (1978) concluded in their review of these studies that there was at best slight evidence of any effect of such physical environmental asymmetry on the direction of CLEM.
More recently, Baker (1989) and Baker and Ledner (1990) reported findings that demonstrated that under an asymmetrical visual condition (in which participants are closer to the wall to their right or left), there was greater CLEM in the direction toward the center of the wall that the participant faced. None of the earlier studies had explored that particular type of extreme degree of visual asymmetry.
The Hypothesis
People commonly keep their bodies in a relatively fixed position during conversations, and they rotate their heads clockwise or counterclockwise to look directly at another person or other people (shared eye gaze). Baker noticed in various conversations that in situations in which people had turned their heads clockwise or counterclockwise to establish shared eye gaze and then momentarily stopped the conversation (apparently to formulate their next comments), they frequently shifted their eyes away from direct contact with the people with whom they were speaking, and that the eye movements were predominantly in the direction opposite to the direction of head turn. We sought to test, under laboratory conditions, the empirically derived hypothesis that CLEM shifts in the direction opposite to the direction in which the head is turned. We arranged the participants’ chairs so that they had to rotate their heads sharply clockwise or counterclockwise to be able to face the experimenter directly. When they did that, their bodies were in asymmetrical positions.
Method
Participants
The participants were 16 right-handed young adults (8 men and 8 women) whose sessions were run individually and who were paid for their participation. The participants were not aware that their eye movements were being observed and recorded. As far as they knew, their task was to answer a series of questions put to them by the experimenter. (The experimenter was a female research assistant who was not familiar with the hypothesis or aims of the present study.) The questions were included as one part of a larger study into perceptual style and personality.
Procedure and Physical Arrangements
The participant sat facing the experimenter, who was directly opposite and across a table from the participant during each condition. The experimenter’s chair was positioned so that its right-left midpoint was equidistant from the right and left walls and its back was parallel to the wall that the participant faced. The floor, walls, table, ceiling, and corners of the room were totally devoid of any right-left asymmetrical feature visible to the participant. Relative to the participant’s location, the right-left extension of the room was 195.6 cm, the front-back extension was 310 cm, and the only door was located in the middle of the back wall behind the participant. The experimenter asked the participant the questions, and she recorded the CLEM data on a tally sheet attached to a clipboard. The clipboard was held at an angle so that the participant could not see what was being recorded. She was trained to pause before she asked each question and to wait until the participant looked directly at her, thereby establishing shared eye gaze. After eye gaze was shared, it was rare for the participants to move their eyes until after the question had been asked. The experimenter recorded the initial direction of each CLEM after she had finished asking each question. If the participants did not move their eyes between the end of the question and the beginning of their responses, then it was recorded as no motion.
The Questionnaire
We developed two parallel questionnaires, each consisting of 28 items. The items were patterned after Duke (1968) and Bakan (1969). Each form was equally represented within each condition, with half the participants receiving one form first and the rest receiving the other form first.
Conditions
In the symmetrical condition, the participant and the experimenter were each seated midway between the left and right walls of the room. Both chairs and the table centered on the left-right midpoint of the room, which was 97.8 cm distant from each lateral wall. The backs of the two chairs were parallel to each other and to the front and back walls of the room. The participant faced the experimenter with his or her head and body oriented toward the wall behind the experimenter. Thus, in that condition, the participant’s body was symmetrically aligned with the head, with both the head and body oriented toward the wall in front of the participant.
In the asymmetrical condition, half of the participants rotated their heads 68[degrees] clockwise from the positions of their bodies, and the other half of the participants rotated their heads 68[degrees] counterclockwise from the positions of their bodies. We placed the legs of the participant’s chair firmly onto prearranged marks on the floor to ensure that the participant would sit in the position of asymmetry. For the participants in the head-rotated-right condition, the chair was rotated 68[degrees] counterclockwise from the position in which the chair was placed during the symmetrical condition. For the participants in the head-rotated-left condition, the chair was rotated 68[degrees] clockwise. The participants had to rotate their heads sharply (68[degrees]) clockwise or counterclockwise to be able to face the experimenter directly.
In both the symmetrical and asymmetrical conditions, each participant was instructed to maintain a face-frontward posture, which the experimenter monitored. Thus, in both conditions, the participant’s head faced the experimenter. None of the participants asked why they were turning their bodies away from the experimenter. None of the participants, while in the asymmetrical condition, tried to move the chair so that they did not have to turn their heads to face the experimenter, even though the chair was not fixed in place.
Design
Each participant was run through both the symmetrical and the asymmetrical conditions, which were separated by a 45-min interval. Within the asymmetrical condition, half (4) of the men and half (4) of the women were randomly assigned to the head-rotated-right condition; the remaining half of the men (4) and women (4) were assigned to the head-rotated-left condition. Within each of these four groups of 4 participants, 2 were given the asymmetrical condition first and the remaining 2 were given the symmetrical condition first.
Recording of Data
After each question, the experimenter recorded the direction of CLEM as follows: right, left, up, down, diagonal (e.g., up and right, in which case both up and right were recorded), no motion, gaze not shared at end of question, or uncertain. The data were excluded in the few instances in which a participant’s head was not facing completely forward. Almost every CLEM involved a clear, relatively large movement, even though CLEM had been defined as any discernible eye movement in a given direction.
Scores
We devised a ratio score (RS, on Table 1) to summarize all the pertinent information for a given participant within a given condition in a single index. To do that, we (a) computed the absolute value of the difference between the number of left and right CLEMs; (b) divided that difference by the total (T) scores (i.e., the number of questions after which clear-cut directional eye movements were observed during a given condition; that denominator thus excluded the questions after which the participant showed no motion, or where gaze was not shared at the end of the question, or where the experimenter was not sure how to score); and (c) arbitrarily coded the scores thus far defined as + if there was more right CLEM than left, and–if there was more left CLEM than right.
The ratio score was computed in two ways from each condition: In one case, all instances of diagonal motion (e.g., up and right) were excluded; in the other case, all instances of diagonal motion were included. A detailed examination of these data indicated that diagonal motion occurred relatively infrequently and that similar findings emerged no matter which of these two scores was used.
Results
Main Findings
We conducted a 2 (between group: clockwise vs. counterclockwise) x 2 (repeated measures condition: asymmetry vs. symmetry) analysis of variance (ANOVA) on these data. In keeping with the hypothesis, the Group x Condition ANOVA was significant, F(1, 14) = 47.89, p < .001. These results are presented in Figure 1. We also conducted two 1 x 2 follow-up ANOVAs. For the symmetrical condition, the outcome for clockwise (CW; M = .17, SD = .64) did not differ significantly, F(1, 14) = 2.19, ns, from the outcome for counterclockwise (CCW; M = -.32, SD = .67). For the asymmetrical condition, the outcome for CW (M = -.95, SD = .08) differed significantly, F(1, 14) = 257.77, p < .001, from the outcome for CCW (M = .77, SD = .29).
How strong is the reported relationship found for the asymmetrical condition? One approach to answering that question would be to consider effect size. Cohen’s (1969) d statistic (the ratio of the difference between the two means divided by the average standard deviation) shows an 8.13 SD difference between the means for the CW and CCW asymmetry conditions, which is a very large effect. Another approach is to compute the total explained variance. Again, we used Cohen’s d and there was 94.3% explained variance in the asymmetrical condition, which indicated almost complete control over the right-left directionality of CLEM with manipulation of the direction in which the head was turned. In addition, each participant in the head-CW condition showed more leftward CLEM and each participant in the head-CCW condition showed more rightward CLEM (for 16 participants showing the predicted effect and no participants showing opposite to the predicted effect, p < .001, two-tailed binomial test).
Supplementary Findings: Descriptive Statistics
In Table 1, the data collected in the present study are reported separately for each participant. The first three columns of the table specify the participant’s number, sex, and the order of conditions (symmetrical vs. asymmetrical condition first). The direction of head turn (DHT) is denoted as CW or CCW for the participant during the asymmetrical condition. The tabulated frequencies of eye movement responses observed following the 28 questions asked during the asymmetrical condition are then presented, as follows: the number of questions after which there was CLEM to the right (R), to the left (L), up (U), down (D), the number of times no CLEM was observed (N), the number of questions after which the response was not scoreable (NS), including “gaze not shared at the end of the question” or any response other than right, left, up, down or some combination of two of these (e.g., up and right); and the total number of questions (T) after which clear-cut asymmetrical motion occurred. The value for the total always equaled the number of questions asked (i.e., 28) minus the sum of “none” and “not scoreable.” If the participants moved their eyes diagonally to the right and up, that was scored as showing both right and up CLEM. Thus the sum of right, left, up, and down can exceed the value for Total. The final category, the ratio score, has been defined heretofore. The tabulated frequencies of eye movement responses that were observed after each of the 28 questions was asked during the symmetrical (control) condition are presented in the second part of Table 1.
Column 4 presents the frequencies of right CLEMs (R) for the 8 participants (numbered 01 through 08) who turned their heads CCW and for the 8 participants (numbered 09 through 16) who turned their heads CW during the asymmetrical condition. The results for the 8 participants who turned CCW ranged from 13 through 23 rightward CLEMS (M = 18.38, SD = 4.033), whereas the scores for the 8 participants who turned CW ranged from 0 to 1 rightward CLEM (M = .38, SD = 0.52). There is no overlap of scores here. In fact, there are clearly two quite separate distributions of scores, one for each condition. The results for left CLEMs (L; Column 5) parallel those for fight CLEMs. For the 8 participants (09-16) who turned their heads CW, left CLEMS ranged from 14 to 25 (M = 20.63, SD = 3.93), whereas the 8 participants who turned CCW showed from 0 to 10 left CLEMS (M = 1.75, SD = 3.41). There is no overlap of scores here, and again we have two disparate distributions of scores. Each of the 8 participants in the head-CCW condition showed a greater frequency of right CLEM than of left CLEM (Column 4 was always larger than Column 5), and each of the 8 participants in the head-CW condition showed a greater frequency of left CLEM than of right CLEM (Column 5 was always larger than Column 4). Nine of the 16 participants showed every one of their lateral (i.e., right or left) CLEMs in the predicted direction, and 6 additional participants showed at least 89% of their lateral CLEMs in the predicted direction. Only participant 04 showed nearly as many CLEMs in the direction opposite to the one that was predicted. In sum, the distributions of right CLEM and of left CLEM were almost totally separated for the participants who turned their heads CCW compared with those who turned their heads CW. Moreover, 15 of the 16 participants showed almost all of their lateral (i.e., right plus left) CLEM responses falling in the predicted direction.
Discussion
In the present study, we explored whether body asymmetry affects the direction of initial CLEM after a person is asked a question that requires some reflective thought. The participants were seated so that they had to rotate their heads 68[degrees] to the right (clockwise) or 68[degrees] to the left (counterclockwise) of their bodies to face the experimenter. That rotation of the head ensured that the participants would be in a position of asymmetry. The results for the head-rotated-right condition compared with those for the head-rotated-left condition showed a striking effect. The type of body asymmetry in the present study had a controlling effect on the direction of CLEM, whether it was viewed in terms of effect size (mean difference) or in terms of percentage of variance explained.
One may ask, What is being manipulated in the present study–visual or proprioceptive information? (2) Although visual information was present (i.e., the eyes are open), there was no right-left asymmetrical visual information present at the end of each question when the participant was sharing eye gaze with the experimenter. We were meticulous in our efforts to ensure that the room and all the objects in it provided the participants with only symmetrical right-left stimulation when they looked directly at the experimenter. The effectiveness of that effort is consistent with the finding in the control condition in our earlier study (Baker & Ledner, 1990), which was almost identical to that used in the present study, and in the findings in the control condition in the present study: We observed no significant difference in fight CLEM versus left CLEM for either condition. Thus, we conclude that the only operative asymmetry that was manipulated in the present study was the proprioceptive information that was provided by turning the head sharply fight or left.
The methodological implication of that finding is straightforward: Researchers who study CLEM should avoid the biasing effects of asymmetrical body position. That should provide no problem for researchers who conduct studies in controlled laboratory settings. But for those who might want to explore CLEM in participants or subjects in naturalistic settings or with other species (e.g., Muncer, 1982), it may be more difficult to ensure symmetrical body positions.
In the future, researchers who study this problem area could benefit from the use of a video camera or of eye-movement equipment to improve the accuracy of recording eye movements and to quantify the degree of body turning. In the present study, the experimenter was not familiar with the hypothesis. CLEM was scored only on trials in which the participants were looking directly at the experimenter at the end of the question (as recommended by Ehrlichman & Weinberger, 1978), and almost all CLEMS were full (rather than minimal) eye movements, all of which provides a good basis for believing that these data were accurate.
We selected only right-handed people as participants because one of the hypotheses explored in the CLEM literature is that the direction of CLEM may be an index of hemispheric asymmetry. Studies into laterality are often restricted to right-handed participants, or the data are analyzed separately for right-and left-handed people because researchers believe that differences in handedness implicate differential cerebral lateralization. Many studies in the CLEM literature have restricted participants to right-handed people (e.g., Ehrlichman, Weiner, & Baker, 1974; Galluscio & Paradzinski, 1995), or they have collected data from both right- and left-handed participants but included only the data for the right-handed participants in the analyses (McEvaddy-Cantalupo, 1994). There has been no evidence of any preponderance of left CLEM among many samples of right-handers (cited by Ehrlichman, 1984), but some researchers (Beveridge & Hicks, 1976; Ramirez & Ehrlichman, 1981; Sackeim, Weiman, & Grega, 1984) have reported a tendency for left-handers to show more frequent right CLEM. Borod, Vingiano, and Cytryn (1988) examined both handedness (right vs. left) and eyedness (right vs. left). Under Borod et al’s emotional instructions, handedness and eyedness had no effect. Under their nonemotional instructions, the direction of CLEM for left-handed participants (but not for right-handed participants) was right for right-eyed people and left for left-eyed people. In the present study, the effect of body asymmetry is so pronounced in terms of percentage of variance explained in the asymmetrical condition that we doubt that handedness or eyedness would materially have changed the outcome.
There appears to be a discrepancy between the results of earlier studies into the effects of asymmetrical stimulation on direction of CLEM and the results that are reported in the present article. The earlier researchers generally failed to find evidence of effects of asymmetry (Meskin & Singer, 1974; Rodin & Singer, 1976; Schwartz et al., 1975). In the first study by Baker (1989), he serendipitously observed what appeared to be an effect of visual asymmetry. Baker and Ledner (1990) confirmed that finding in a well-controlled follow-up study. Now, we report similar effects for body asymmetry. How is it possible that we have observed, in three consecutive studies, significant effects associated with asymmetrical stimulation, whereas previous researchers had failed to observe similar effects? One possible answer is that the types of symmetry that were used in the earlier studies were different from the types we used. Or it could be that some forms of asymmetry affect CLEM and other forms do not. Another possibility is that we used rather extreme degrees of asymmetry–sitting at one versus the other extreme side of a room on opposite sides of a table and rotating the head sharply clockwise or counterclockwise. Perhaps the results will be clear cut only when researchers use extreme forms of asymmetry, but only further research will provide a basis for clarifying these issues.
TABLE 1. Frequencies of Eye Movement Responses After Questions Were
Asked During Conditions of Asymmetrical and Symmetrical Body Position
P Sex Order R L U D N
Asymmetrical condition
DHT: CCW
01 F A 17 01 01 00 07
02 F S 20 01 00 06 01
03 F A 23 00 02 00 04
04 F S 13 10 01 02 02
05 M A 17 02 02 00 02
06 M S 21 00 00 00 03
07 M A 23 00 01 00 01
08 M S 13 00 01 04 04
Mean 18.38 1.75 1.00 1.50 3.00
DHT: CW
09 F A 00 20 00 00 07
10 F S 00 24 00 00 04
11 F A 00 25 00 01 01
12 F S 01 16 00 01 03
13 M A 01 20 00 00 01
14 M S 00 23 01 00 03
15 M A 00 23 00 00 03
16 M S 01 14 00 01 06
Mean .38 20.63 .12 .38 3.50
DHT: CCW
01 F A 00 16 04 10 01
02 F S 02 18 00 03 01
03 F A 03 14 00 01 06
04 F S 00 22 00 03 01
05 M A 12 01 01 05 02
06 M S 10 09 00 01 06
07 M A 21 03 01 00 02
08 M S 00 15 00 02 05
Mean 6.00 12.25 .75 3.12 3.00
DHT: CW
09 F A 15 01 00 00 09
10 F S 01 10 00 00 10
11 F A 20 04 00 00 04
12 F S 00 08 00 10 10
13 M A 17 05 00 00 02
14 M S 10 00 02 03 07
15 M A 06 10 00 03 02
16 M S 05 05 00 13 05
Mean 9.25 5.38 0.25 3.62 6.12
P NS T RS
Asymmetrical condition
DHT: CCW
01 03 18 .89
02 00 27 .70
03 01 23 1.00
04 02 24 .12
05 05 21 .71
06 04 21 1.00
07 04 23 1.00
08 07 17 .76
Mean 3.25 21.75 0.77
DHT: CW
09 01 20 -1.00
10 00 24 -1.00
11 02 25 -1.00
12 08 17 -.88
13 06 21 -.90
14 02 23 -1.00
15 02 23 -1.00
16 06 16 -.81
Mean 3.38 21.12 -.95
DHT: CCW
01 05 22 -.73
02 05 22 -.73
03 04 18 -.61
04 02 25 -.88
05 07 19 .58
06 02 20 .05
07 01 25 .72
08 07 16 -.94
Mean 4.12 20.88 -.32
DHT: CW
09 03 16 .88
10 07 11 -.82
11 00 24 .67
12 02 16 -.50
13 04 22 .55
14 08 13 .77
15 07 19 -.21
16 00 23 .00
Mean 3.88 18.00 .17
Note. P = participant number. DHT = direction of head turn during
asymmetry. Order = symmetric (S) or asymmetric (A) first. R = right.
L = left. U = up. D = down. N = no motion observed. NS = not scurable,
or eye gaze was not shared at the end of the question (see text). T =
total number of questions after which clear-cut asymmetrical eye
movement occurred. (Total is always 28 [the number of questions] minus
the sum of N and NS. Because a given response occasionally involved
both lateral [R or L] and vertical [U or D] motion. the sum of R + L +
U + D can exceed the value of T.) RS = ratio score (see text) =
(R – L)/T, which was arbitrarily coded “+” if there were more right
than left CLEMs and coded “=” if there were more left than right CLEMs.
CLEM = conjugate lateral eye movement. CCW = counterclockwise. CW =
clockwise.
The authors thank Laraine Schwartz, who was the experimenter.
NOTES
(1.) Ehrlichman and Weinberger (1978) clarified that distinction: “… questions that call for highly overlearned, immediately available, and syntactically simple responses do not tend to elicit CLEMs, whereas those that require more complex cognitive operations for retrieval or formulations of the answer do tend to elicit CLEMs” (p. 1084).
(2.) We thank Jay Pratt for pointing out this issue to us in a peer review of the present article.
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Manuscript received April 13, 2001
Revision accepted for publication November 21, 2001
A. HARVEY BAKER
A. ILAN LEDNER
Department of Psychology
Queens College of The City University of New York
Address correspondence to A. Harvey Baker, Department of Psychology, NSB E318, Queens College, 65-30 Kissena Boulevard, Flushing, NY 11367-1597; baker@forbin.qc. edu (e-mail).
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