Research has suggested that the two hemispheres of the brain serve specialized functions, with the most recent studies portraying the left hemisphere as processing information in a linear, serial, or sequential manner and the right hemisphere as processing information in a holistic, concrete, or visual mode. Although few systematic studies have attempted to integrate cognitive and neurological points of view, Paivio's (1971) portrayal of two distinct, yet interactive memory systems may be consistent with established hemispheric differences in functioning found in the human brain. Research examining the learning of individual words supports this dual processing theory. To extend this research, the degree to which the concreteness of prose materials would interact with a learner's hemispheric processing was investigated in 96 normal adult learners. Subjects were assigned to a control, imagery instructed, or hemispheric interference condition and were auditorily presented an abstract and a concrete expository passage. A second study examined this bimodal/dual processing integration with normals and with neurologically impaired learners. Results from these two studies suggest that while both hemispheres were efficient at learning concrete verbal material, the left hemisphere was better at processing abstract verbal information. These results can be interpreted as favoring a dual processing theory which operates along hemispheric lines. It can be further hypothesized that difficulties in the recall of text information may relate in part to difficulties in the integration of visual and verbal coding strategies. (Author/NRB)