Abstract
Previous research has shown that action and semantic attributes are processed in physiologically distinct streams (Milner, A.D. & Goodale, M.A., 2006). For example, visually guided movements, such as the action of a hammer hammering a nail, are processed predominantly in the dorsal stream, while colour is processed in the ventral stream. Furthermore, these two streams, ventral and dorsal, have been associated with the upper and lower visual fields respectively (Milner, A.D. & Goodale, M.A., 2006). The present investigation sought to evaluate the impact of attribute type and visual field on identification of novel objects. It is expected that matching the processing stream with its complementary visual field and attribute type (dorsal stream ? lower visual field ? action; ventral stream ? upper visual field ? semantic) will produce decidedly faster reaction times in identifying these novel objects as compared to mismatched presentations. Twenty-one university students learned names and attributes associated with six novel objects. Three objects were paired with action attributes (pull, twist, slide) and three were paired with semantic attributes (nice, weak, rare). A computer recall task was performed once participants were able to recall all six objects error free during randomized presentation. Data was collected from this computer recall task where the six novel objects were presented in pseudo-randomized order in the upper or lower visual fields. Recall errors and the time required to identify the object were recorded. This study investigated interactions between visual field, processing stream, and their associated attributes. Previous research has examined each of these variables separately, and interactions may prove useful in further understanding neurological disorders such as apraxia.