How Different Reading Habits Influence Lines, Words and Pseudowords Bisection: Evidence from Italian and Hebrew

When young adult readers bisect a visually presented line, they generally posit the subjective midpoint to the left of the objective one, a phenomenon called pseudoneglect. This phenomenon also pertains to orthographic material (words, pseudowords, consonant strings) and recently it has been shown that stimulus length may affect the bisection of lines and orthographic material differently: whereas lines are always bisected leftward, orthographic material is sensitive to length showing an opposite rightward bisection bias only with short stimuli. Pseudoneglect is generally ascribed to two main factors: cerebral asymmetries in visuo-spatial tasks and reading habits. To investigate this issue, 46 adults with different directional reading habits (Italian and Hebrew-speaking) were asked to bisect lines, words, and pseudowords of different lengths in both languages. Stimuli were presented on the screen of a tablet computer and the participants marked the target midpoint with their forefinger. The results showed that reading habits have an important role in the magnitude and direction of the bias in bisecting verbal and nonverbal material.