Pseudoneglect in native readers of Georgian and Arabic

Malkhaz Makashvili 1, 2, *, Ammar Alirani 3, Berihan Elemam 3, Mawda Abdelmegid 3, Lasha Chantadze 4, Natia Lomashvili 1, Manana Khomeriki 1, Maya Royinishvili 1 and David Janelidze 1

1 I.Beritashvili Center of Experimental Biomedicine, Vision Neurophysiology Laboratory, Tbilisi, Georgia.
2 Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia.
3 Faculty of Medicine, Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia.
4 Caucasus University, Tbilisi, Georgia.
 
Research Article
World Journal of Advanced Research and Reviews, 2024, 22(03), 1638–1644
Article DOI: 10.30574/wjarr.2024.22.3.1903
 
Publication history: 
Received on 20 June 2024; revised on 25 June 2024; accepted on 27 June 2024
 

 

Abstract: 
Introduction: We aimed to compare the pseudoneglect in left-to-right vs right-to-left readers. Our study was encouraged for several reasons: 1. Only a few studies report on pseudoneglect in Star cancellation task performance and extended use of this task is desirable. 2. At the same time, we used a new test for pseudoneglect – Cancel the Rabbit task, which has not been used in earlier studies. 3. This is the first study of pseudoneglect in representatives of human cultures (namely Georgians), that have not been studied earlier.
Observation: Georgian and Arab participants performed the Star cancellation task. Another group of Georgian participants performed the Cancel the Rabbit task. The number of first cancellations was significantly higher on the left side in Georgian participants. More than half of young adult Arabs display pseudoneglect in the Star cancellation task. However, no significant difference in the number of left-sided and right-sided first cancellations was found in Arab participants. Female Arab participants made more left-sided cancellations, compared to males.
Conclusion: Most young adult Georgians display pseudoneglect on a group level. The phenomenon is consistent across the tasks on star cancellation and rabbit cancellation. More than half of young adult Arabs display pseudoneglect in the Star cancellation task performance.
Bias toward the right visual hemispace, displayed by some individuals, Georgians, and Arabs, is due to the activation of their left brain hemisphere in tasks on visual target cancellation.
Habitual reading right-to-left promotes the participation of the left hemisphere in cancellation task performance.
 
Keywords: 
Pseudoneglect; Reading direction; Arabic; Georgian; Cancellation task
 
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