Neuropsychologia, 1978, Vol. 16, pp. 251 to 254. Pergamon Press. Printed in England.

NOTE

CONJUGATE LATERAL EYE MOVEMENT (CLEM)

DIRECTION AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO PERFORMANCE
ON VERBAL AND VISUOSPATIAL TASKS

GEORGE H. TUCKER and MICHAEL R. Sum

Department of Psychology, University of Mississippi,
Mississippi 38677, U.S.A.

( Received I 0 October 1977)

Abstract--The hypothesis that conjugate lateral eye movement (CLEM) direction is related
to activation of the contralateral cerebral hemisphere was tested. As predicted by the hypo-
thesis, classification as a right-mover was associated with higher scores on verbal (left-
hemisphere) tasks, while classification as a left-mover was associated with higher scores on
visuospatial (right-hemisphere) tasks.

DAY [1] REPORTED that many individuals display a characteristic horizontal movement of the eyes to the
left or right after being asked a question that requires reflective thought. Monitoring the direction of these
conjugate lateral eye movements (CLEMs) makes it possible to assign subjects to a "left-mover" or "right-
mover" group. Research findings have indicated that right-movers are more likely than left-movers to
focus on external stimuli [2], to perform better on measures of verbal ability [3] and mathematical ability
[4], and to have a " h a r d " undergraduate major such as physical science or economics [4, 5]. Conversely,
left-movers have been found to exhibit a greater proportion of alpha activity during EEG recording than
right-movers [6], more susceptible to hypnosis [1, 7, 8], and to employ a higher amount of visual imagery
in solving mathematical problems [9].
BAKAlq [4] hypothesized that CLEM direction was correlated with activation of the contralateral cerebral
hemisphere. Hence, a CLEM to the right would be associated with left-hemisphere activity, and a CLEM
to the left would be associated with right-hemisphere activity. However, BAKAN [4] also reported that left-
movers, who were hypothetically more right-hemisphere oriented, obtained significantly higher scores
than right-movers on the Verbal section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test. The available physiological evi-
dence indicates that for right-handed individuals the left hemisphere is dominant for verbal functions, while
the right hemisphere is dominant for visuospatial functions [10]. Therefore, Bakan's findings apparently
contradicted his hypothesis. Other investigators have failed to support Bakan's cerebral dominance interp-
retation of CLEM direction using latency of response to mathematical questions [I 1] and an inverted alpha-
bet printing task [3] as dependent measures.
It is possible that the negative findings concerning Bakan's hypothesis were attributable to a lack of
appropriate experimental controls. In testing the cerebral dominance hypothesis it is important to use
subjects for whom basic verbal functions are located in the left cerebral hemisphere. LEvY and REIn [12]
demonstrated a high probability of left-hemisphere dominance for verbal functions in right-handed, non-
inverted writers by using a tachistoscopic reaction-time task. Thus, when testing Bakan's hypothesis, only
right-handed, non-inverted writers should be used to help insure that the subjects are left hemisphere
dominant for verbal functions. Furthermore, basic methodological issues such as sex differences and the
stability of an individual's CLEM direction over time have not yet been satisfactorily resolved [13-15].
It seems futile to investigate differences between left-movers and right-movers if the subjects cannot be
classified in the same directional group on two or more occasions. As a short-term method of resolving
the stability issue, the precaution taken by WEITEN and ETAUGH [3] of including in the data analysis only
those subjects who have been directionally consistent across two or more sessions seems to be a necessary
control procedure. The present study employed controls for left-hemisphere dominance for verbal functions,
sex differences, and CLEM directional stability in investigating Bakan's cerebral dominance hypothesis.

251
252 NOTE

METHOD
Subjects
Seventy-two 18- and 19-yr-old male and female volunteers from introductory psychology classes at the
University of Mississippi served as subjects in the study. Only right-handed, non-inverted writers as defined
by Levy and Reid [12] were selected as subjects due to the high probability of left-hemisphere dominance
for verbal functions in such a population.

Stimulus questions and depemlent measures

Four subscales of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) were selected to tap left- and right-
hemisphere functions, respectively. The Information and Vocabulary subscales were chosen because they
consistently correlated higher with the Verbal IQ and lower with the Performance IQ score than any of
the other Verbal subscales. Conversely, Block Design and Object Assembly were chosen because they
consistently correlated higher with the Performance IQ and lower with the Verbal IQ score than any of
lhe other Performance subscales [16]. Use of the four subscales provided a feasible means of measuring
verbal (left-hemisphere) and visuospatial (right-hemisphere) functions. For purpcs~s of data analysis raw
scores from the four subscales were converted to scaled scores according to the WAIS norms for 18- and
19-yr-olds. A "Verbal" score was obtained for each subject by summing the scaled scores for Information
and Vocabulary, and a "Performance" score was obtained by summing the scaled scores for Block Design
and Object Assembly. The Performance score was then subtracted from the Verbal score to provide the
dependent measure for the final correlational analysis.
In order to provoke CLEMs, questions requiring at least a minimal period of reflection must be asked.
Questions similar to those reported by 'I'£MPLERet al. [15] were used in session 2 to assess the stability of
CLEM direction (e.g. "How many letters are there in the word architecture?").

Procedure
In the first session the subject was seated at a table across from the experimenter. A second observer
stood directly behind the experimenter to take reliability data on CLEM direction. The subject sat in the
center of the room and faced a horizontally symmetrical gazing background. After the administration of
the Information subscale the observer left the room, and the three remaining subscales were administered
in the customary order: Vocabulary, Block Design, Object Assembly. The only deviation from routine
WAIS administration was that every item in each subscale was administered regardless of the subject's
performance, and credit was given for all correct responses in accordance with the WAIS scoring pro-
cedure. The first session was approx 30 min in length.
The second session was held one week later and consisted of the subject's answering the set of questions
designed to provoke CLEMs. The procedure followed was otherwise the same as that for the administration
of the Information subscale in session 1. Session 2 lasted approx 5 rain. The subjects were then debriefed
and allowed to ask questions about the experiment.
Data recordhlg and reliability
The experimenter and the observer independently scored CLEMs emitted by the subject as left, right,
or no movement. In session 1 CLEM direction was assessed during the administration of the Information
subscale, but only the last 10 CLEMs were used to assign subjects to directional groups. Responses that
were scored "no movement" were not included for classifying subjects into the directional groups. Follow-
ing previous reports [4, 3], seven out of 10 CLEMs in one direction was the criterion for group classifi-
cation. In session 2 items were administered until 10 CLEMs were observed, and the same criterion, seven
out of 10 CLEMs in one direction, was used for group classification.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Interobserver reliability for the 140 sessions was a highly acceptable 96'3 %. Of the 72 right-handed,
non-inverted writers initially selected for the study, four failed to meet the criterion of seven out of 10
CLEMs in one direction in session 1. Thus, only 68 subjects were included in session 2. Eight subjects
could not be classified in the same directional group in both sessions. Hence, 60 of the 68 subjects who
met the criterion for group inclusion in session 1 were found to be directionally consistent in the second
session. This finding is significantly different from chance expectations 0~2(1)=39"8, P<0.001), indicating
that CLEM direction is a stable behavior.
Only the data for the 60 directionally consistent subjects were used in testing the cerebral dominance
hypothesis. Each CLEM group consisted of 15 males and 15 females. Since there were no signiFcant dif-
ferences due to sex on any of the experimental variables, the data for males and females were combined.
A point-biserial correlation coefficient (rvb,) was computed, using CLEM directional group as the dicho-
tomous variable and the difference resulting from the Verbal minus Performance score for each s' bject as
 NOTE 253

the continuous variable. A highly significant correlation was obtained (rpb~=0"65, t(58)=6.5, P<0.001),
indicating that categorization as a right-mover was associated with higher scores (i.e. Verbal > Performance),
and categorization as a left-mover was associated with lower scores (i.e. Performance >Verbal). Thus,
BAKAN'S [4] cerebral dominance interpretation of CLEM direction was strongly supported. The impli-
cations and possible utility of the CLEM phenomenon and the cerebral dominance hypothesis are presently
unknown, but subsequent research should serve to clarify these areas. Furthermore, it is possible that
inclusion of a group of "mixed movers", in addition to right- and left-mover groups, might well allow for
fresh examination of the old issue of "mixed-dominance" [17] and its supposed relationship to a number
of educational problems.

,4cknDwledgements--The authors wish to express their gratitude to RANDALLHULING for assistance with
data collection and STEPHEN C. FOWLER for his helpful suggestions regarding the statistical analyses.

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Sci. 15, 93-94, 1969.
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17. ORTON,S. Readilt.g, Writing and Speech Problems in Children. Norton, New York, 1973.

~{0 s u m ~ :
On a examin6 l'hypoth~se selon laque]]c la d i r e c t i o n des
mouvements conjugu@s oculaires lat6raux est en rapport avec l'acti-
vation de l'h@misph@re c6r6bral controlat~ral. En conformit6 de l'hy-
poth6se, le c o m p o r t e m e n t de mouvement vers ]a d r o i t e 6tait associ6
avec des scores sup6rieurs dans les t~ches verbales (h@misph6re gau-
che) tandis que le c o m p o r t e m e n t de mouvement vers la g a u c h e (~tait
associ6 avec des scores sup6rieurs dans les t~ches visuospatiales
(h@misph&re droit) .
254 NotEs

Deutschsprachige ~ ~~ ~ ~"

Es v~irde die IIypothese geprfift, ob dJe iIichtung k o n j u g i e r t e r

lateraler kugenbewesungen (CLEH) verkn':Spft ist mat der Akti-
vierung der k o n t r a l a t e r a l e n cerebralen Hemisphere. Wie in der
H]rpothese vorausgesagt, war die als nach rechts gerichtet
klassifizierte Bewegung verbunden mit h~heren Leistungen beJ_
sprachlichen Aufgaben (linke Hemisphere), tv~ihrend die als
nach links gerichte% eingestufte Be~qegung mit hVJheren Lei-
stungen bei o~tisch-rNum]_ichen Aufgabe~ (rechte Hemis~h>ire)
verbunden ~var.