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Language and its interacting components: the right hemisphere hypothesis in derivational morphology
Paola Marangolo1, Fabrizio Piras
1Department of Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine, Ancona, Italy. p.marangolo@univpm.it
Brain Research
|January 19, 2010
Summary
Right brain damage impacts language processing, specifically derivational morphology. Impaired subjects struggled with response inhibition, suggesting language relies on broader cognitive functions beyond the left hemisphere.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Linguistics
Background:
- Traditional views posit language is left-hemisphere dominant.
- Emerging research suggests language processing involves broader cognitive interactions.
- Derivational morphology, previously considered purely linguistic, is now examined for cognitive links.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between derivational morphology deficits and response selection mechanisms.
- To explore the role of the right hemisphere in language tasks.
- To test the hypothesis that language utilizes other cognitive domains.
Main Methods:
- Studied 12 right brain-damaged (RBD) subjects, including 6 with selective derivational morphology deficits.
- Administered a response selection task involving inhibitory control.
- Performed lesion analysis on participants' brains.
Main Results:
- Subjects with derivational deficits showed slower reaction times when inhibiting responses.
- Right subcortical structures were implicated in lesion analysis.
- Evidence suggests a link between derivational morphology and response selection in the right hemisphere.
Conclusions:
- Language processing, including derivational morphology, may depend on right-hemisphere cognitive functions like response inhibition.
- Findings support an interactive view of language, challenging modularity.
- Inter-hemispheric cooperation is crucial for complex language tasks.
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