Representation, Control and Interaction: What Would a Theory of Right-Hemisphere Lexical Semantics Look Like?

Abstract

The axiom that there is only one cortical structure (or area) for each higher cognitive function and one function for each structure (with little or no redundancy) underlies much of neuropsychology and behavioral neurology. This, however, is only the simplest of a number of scenarios of how neural structure and cognitive function could in principle be correlated. The cortex might have been organized so that every structure subserved every mental function (e.g., as argued most recently by Lashley 1929). Alternatively, some structures could have subserved many functions or many structures could have redundantly subserved a single function. Each of these possibilities present special problems for the explanation and description of the effects of brain damage on behavior. The problems, however, associated with these latter more complicated principles of localization have up until this point been largely avoided in the study of the function of language. This is because language has been assumed to be the exclusive purview of the left cerebral hemisphere.

This research was supported by VA Merit Review 097-44-3765-001 to William Milberg.