Normal Language requires the integration of formal, conceptual, and pragmatic knowledge. It appears to involve the analytic processing of the left hemisphere and the holistic processing of the right. To study hemisphere involvement in language processing, patients with unilateral right or left hemisphere lesions and a matched neurologically normal control group were tested on their ability to perceive stress and intonation contrasts in words and phrases of varying length. The results suggest that both hemispheres are involved in normal language processing, each in a qualitatively different way. Whereas the left hemisphere appears to work from the bottom up, analyzing information sequentially and arriving at the overall pattern, the right hemisphere works from the top down, beginning with the overall pattern and working to fill in the details. Moreover, the importance of each hemisphere's participation may change in response to different grammatical and contexual variables.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.71912 |
| Date | January 1984 |
| Creators | Johnson-Weiner, Karen Marie |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Linguistics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 000216402, proquestno: AAINK66654, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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