Performance of various cognitive tasks has been affected by induced lateral gaze, both in terms of quantity and quality. Work on quality attributes this to a heightened level of arousal in the hemisphere contralateral to the direction of the gaze. A similar effect on a field-dependence task is demonstrated in the present study. 20 right-handed subjects performed a rod-and-frame test while gazing to the right and while gazing to the left. The estimation of true verticality was much more accurate when the subjects' gazes were directed to the right. Implications of the findings are presented.
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