Although a gradient of category membership seems to form the internal structure of semantic categories, it is unclear whether the 2 hemispheres of the brain differ in terms of this gradient. The 2 experiments reported here examined this empirical question and explored alternative theoretical interpretations. Participants viewed category names centrally and determined whether a closely related or distantly related word presented to either the left visual field/right hemisphere (LVF/RH) or the right visual field/left hemisphere (RVF/LH) was a member of the category. Distantly related words were categorized more slowly in the LVF/RH relative to the RVF/LH, with no difference for words close to the prototype. The finding resolved past mixed results showing an unambiguous typicality effect for both visual field presentations. Furthermore, we examined items near the fuzzy border that were sometimes rejected as nonmembers of the category and found both hemispheres use the same category boundary. In Experiment 2, we presented 2 target words to be categorized, with the expectation of augmenting the speed advantage for the RVF/LH if the 2 hemispheres differ structurally. Instead the results showed a weakening of the hemispheric difference, arguing against a structural in favor of a processing explanation.

中文翻译：

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脑半球中的类别成员资格和语义编码。

尽管类别成员关系的梯度似乎形成了语义类别的内部结构，但尚不清楚大脑的两个半球在该梯度方面是否有所不同。此处报告的2个实验检查了这个经验问题，并探索了其他理论解释。参与者集中查看类别名称，并确定出现在左视野/右半球（LVF / RH）或右视野/左半球（RVF / LH）的密切相关或遥远相关的单词是否属于该类别。相对于RVF / LH，在LVF / RH中，远距离相关词的分类速度较慢，与原型接近的词没有差异。该发现解决了过去的混合结果，显示了两种视野演示的明确典型性效果。此外，我们检查了模糊边界附近的项目，这些项目有时被拒绝作为类别的非成员，并且发现两个半球使用相同的类别边界。在实验2中，我们提出了2个要分类的目标词，并期望如果两个半球在结构上有所不同，则可以提高RVF / LH的速度优势。取而代之的是，结果显示出半球差异的减弱，这是反对结构的观点，有利于进行加工解释。