Lateral preferences and performance on non-verbal laterality tests in a normal population.

The goal of the present study was to determine if, in a normal population, handedness, footedness, eyedness, earedness and overall congruency across lateral preferences were predictive of perceptual asymmetry on non-verbal tasks. In Experiment 1, subjects had to decide whether a laterally presented facial expression matched a previously presented target. In Experiment 2, subjects had to determine whether the tone of voice heard on dichotic and binaural presentations was the same or different. Eye preference was the most successful variable in predicting both visual field and ear advantages. Knowledge of a person's eye preference however, did not allow for a very accurate prediction of perceptual asymmetry. Nonetheless, the findings suggest that eye preference should be taken into account in future non-verbal laterality studies.