Page No 55-64
Garima Gupta Rakesh Pandey
A. N. Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Banaras Hindu University,
Patna, Bihar Varanasi
The researchers have tried to examine the nature of hemispheric asymmetry in
depression, but did not reach consensus. It is speculated that failure to be unanimously
agreed upon any view could be due to several reasons. Thus, with this background, the
present study aims at exploring the nature of hemispheric asymmetry in depression while
examining the infl uence of information processing demands or method of presenting
stimuli. Emotional and non-emotional information were presented in split-fi eld and
free-viewing paradigm to sub-clinically depressed as well as age and gender matching
non-depressed individuals. The fi ndings revealed that both groups showed signifi cant
left visual fi eld (i.e. right hemispheric) advantage in processing of emotional and
nonemotional information irrespective of depression level. However, this enhanced left
visual fi eld bias for processing of emotional information was greater in the depressed
group. The fi ndings suggest that anomaly in hemispheric asymmetry in depression is
task specifi c or restricted to information processing demands.