Absence of Right Visual Field Attentional Bias in Reading in Dyslexic Children

A parafoveal word is better identified in the right visual field (RVF) than in the left visual field (LVF), in adults [4] and in school-age children [5]. Attention may play a role, at least partially, in this RVF superiority in reading. The hypothesis is that attention is not symmetrically distributed in the state of expectancy prior to the presentation of parafoveal words, and a bias in favor of the RVF exists. This attentional bias may be the consequence of the left hemispheric control when the subject is engaged in a linguistic task [2], and of scanning habits [1]. Many investigators have hypothesized a failure of left-hemisphere posterior brain systems to function properly during reading in dyslexia [6]. A possibility is that this hemispheric dysfunctioning may influence the distribution of spatial attention and affect the RVF bias in reading. We studied the distribution of attention when identifying parafoveal words in dyslexic children and agematched skilled readers. We compared performance in a condition in which a word was presented alone in the LVF or RVF, and a condition in which a distractor was simultaneously presented in the visual field opposite the word. The distribution of attention should be affected by the presence of the distractor, and the distractor effect is stronger in the LVF than in the RVF in normal