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Right movies on the right seat: Laterality and seat choice
Author(s) -
Okubo Matia
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.1556
Subject(s) - psychology , laterality , right hemisphere , preference , social psychology , cognitive psychology , lateralization of brain function , developmental psychology , economics , microeconomics
Various forms of lateral preferences are found in human behaviour. Conducting two experiments, we investigated the lateral preference for seat choice exhibited by people at the movie theatre. The right‐handed participants ( N = 269) tended to choose seats to the right of the screen when they were positively motivated to see the movie. This rightward bias disappeared when they were negatively motivated. In addition, the non‐right‐handed participants ( N = 105) did not show any substantial bias in their seat choice. It is well known that visual and emotional information is better processed in the right hemisphere. Considering the visual and emotional nature of movie experiences, the rightward seating bias among right‐handers appears to be determined by their motivation to effectively utilize their right‐hemisphere functions. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.