Right Hemisphere Contributions to Lexical Semantics

摘要: Language depends on a normally functioning left hemisphere. This central fact of human cerebral dominance was well established by 19th century aphasiologists and has been repeatedly confirmed subsequent investiga tions. Predominance, however, does not imply exclusivity. As demonstrated the commissurotomy patients studied Eran Zaidel associates, right hemisphere is also capable subserving some linguistic functions. The question, then, whether can process language, but how when it so. volume focuses hemisphere's contribution to one important aspect oflanguage, lexical semantics. Although may be involved in other functions, such as prosody, greatest evidence for language competence obtained processing word meanings. In addition, cognitive psychology psycho linguistics have provided us with well-developed models lexicon access guide our inquiry. Finally, there are techniques available studying lateralized normal brain injured hemispheres. For these reasons, focus likely yield number insights about right-hemisphere processing."