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Sign language and the brain.

U Bellugi1, E S Klima, H Poizner

  • 1Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Studies, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California 92037.

Research Publications - Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease
|January 1, 1988
PubMed
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Cerebral specialization for language develops independently of hearing and speech. Studies of deaf signers reveal the left hemisphere dominates sign language, while the right handles visuospatial functions, challenging simplified brain dichotomy models.

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Linguistics
  • Cognitive Psychology

Background:

  • Cerebral specialization for language is typically studied in spoken language users.
  • The role of auditory input and vocalization in language lateralization remains debated.
  • Visuospatial processing is often contrasted with linguistic functions in brain lateralization.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the neural underpinnings of sign language processing in deaf individuals.
  • To determine the necessity of hearing and speech for language-dominant hemispheric specialization.
  • To elucidate the complementary roles of the cerebral hemispheres in language and visuospatial functions.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of language breakdown patterns in deaf signers with focal brain lesions.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Comparison of sign language deficits with visuospatial processing capacities following unilateral brain damage.
  • Examination of dissociations between spatial and syntactic uses of space within sign language.

    • Main Results:

    • Left hemisphere dominance for sign language was observed, with damage causing significant deficits.
    • Right hemisphere damage impaired visuospatial relations but spared sign language functions.
    • Selective impairments in sign language components (lexicon, grammar) suggest modular organization.

    Conclusions:

    • Hearing and speech are not prerequisites for developing language-dominant hemispheric specialization.
    • Sign language processing demonstrates a complementary specialization of left (language) and right (visuospatial) hemispheres.
    • These findings support an innate predisposition for language in the left hemisphere, irrespective of modality.