The present analysis demonstrates a clear pattern of negative age effects in spatial ability across the literature. Although these effects are unaffected by the specific spatial component under investigation or testing conditions, speed of processing was shown to be an important factor in spatial performance. The need to report more thoroughly on characteristics of young and old participants in future studies is also emphasized.

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The purpose of the present study was to investigate the processing of sincere and sarcastic statements by the cerebral hemispheres. Forty right-handed students were asked to localize sincere and sarcastic statements presented dichotically. Participants either indicated the ear that perceived the sarcastic statement or the ear that perceived the sincere statement in counterbalanced blocks of trials. As expected, results revealed a left ear advantage for sarcastic statements and a right ear advantage for sincere statements. In addition, participants showed faster response time when localizing targets (both sarcastic and sincere) to the left ear compared to the right. Finally, a significant negative correlation between laterality effects in the two tasks provided support for causal hemispheric complementarity. Results are discussed with reference to the contribution of the right and left hemispheres to language processing. Their implications for models of sarcasm perception are also discussed.

The present study investigated the influence of attention and word-emotion congruency on auditory asymmetries with stimuli that include verbal and emotional components. Words were presented dichotically to 80 participants and were pronounced in either congruent or incongruent emotional tones. Participants were asked to identify the presence of a target word or emotion under 1 of 2 conditions. The blocked condition required detection of a word or emotional target in separate blocks. In the randomized condition, the target was changed across trials by means of a postcue. A right-ear advantage (REA) and a left-ear advantage (LEA) were found for word and emotion targets, respectively. However, the finding of a Condition x Stimulus Type x Ear x Congruency interaction indicated that in the randomized condition, a REA was obtained for words when the stimuli were congruent and a LEA was observed for emotions when the stimuli were incongruent. The findings suggest that randomizing the target reduced the influence of the attentional set established by blocking the target. It is likely that this promoted the detection of hemispheric interference in the randomized condition.

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