Recent findings suggest that textual constraint and reading goals influence inference generation. However, it is unclear how constraint and reading goals interact during predictive inference generation in the hemispheres. In the current divided visual field study, participants were given a study goal or not given a reading goal prior to reading text that was either strongly or weakly constrained toward a predictive inference. Participants then made lexical decisions to inference-related target words presented to either the left visual field-right hemisphere (LVF-RH) or the right visual field-left hemisphere (RVF-LH). When readers did not have a goal, strongly constrained inferences were processed similarly in the hemispheres, while a right hemisphere advantage was evident for weakly constrained inferences. However, when readers did have a goal, strongly and weakly constrained inferences were processed similarly in both hemispheres. Thus, goals of a reader seem to influence predictive inference generation in the hemispheres, particularly for weakly constrained text.

Although the hemispheres likely carry out different processes during reading, currently little is known about how the consistency effect and the difficulty of the task influences hemispheric processing during text comprehension. In the current study participants read texts promoting an inference, and performed a lexical decision task to inference-related targets presented to the left visual field-right hemisphere or the right visual field-left hemisphere. To manipulate the consistency of information targets were either consistent or inconsistent with the inference. To manipulate difficulty the antecedent and its referent were either separated by two sentences (i.e., the less-difficult condition) or four sentences (i.e., the more-difficult condition). In the consistent condition facilitation was greater in the left hemisphere than the right hemisphere. In the inconsistent condition facilitation was greater in the right hemisphere than the left hemisphere. When analyses were combined across conditions, consistent targets showed greater facilitation in the left hemisphere than in the right hemisphere. Interestingly the level of difficulty did not mediate how the hemispheres process inferences. The current findings suggest that the consistency of information, rather than the difficulty of a task, primarily influences inference generation in the cerebral hemispheres.

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In a classic semantic priming study (Beeman et al., 1994), participants showed a naming advantage for strongly related targets compared to weakly related targets in the left hemisphere, whereas no difference in naming advantage was found between strongly and weakly related targets in the right hemisphere. However, it is unclear how the type of task and individual differences influence this hemispheric activation. In the current study participants completed a lexical decision task when presented with strongly, weakly, and unrelated words in each visual field-hemisphere. A left hemisphere advantage was evident for strongly and weakly related words compared to unrelated words and a right hemisphere advantage was evident for strongly related words compared to weakly related and unrelated words. Additionally, high working memory capacity participants responded more accurately to strongly related words than weakly or unrelated words in the right hemisphere, whereas low working memory capacity participants showed no difference between these conditions in the right hemisphere. Thus, the type of semantic priming task and working memory capacity seem to influence the hemispheric processing of strongly and weakly related information.