Cerebral lateralization of language in deaf and hearing people.
In Experiment 1 neither hearing nor prelingually deaf signing adolescents showed marked lateralization for lexical decision but, unlike the hearing, the deaf were not impaired by the introduction of pseudohomophones. In Experiment 2 semantic categorization produced a left hemisphere advantage in the hearing for words but not pictures whereas in the deaf words and signs but not pictures showed a right hemisphere advantage. In Experiment 3 the lexical decision and semantic categorization findings were confirmed and both groups showed a right hemisphere advantage for a face/nonface decision task. The possible effect of initial language acquisition on the development of hemispheric lateralization for language is discussed.
Sanders
G
G
Department of Psychology, City of London Polytechnic, England.
Wright
H V
HV
Ellis
C
C
D000293:Adolescent; D001288:Attention; D003638:Deafness / Q000523:psychology*; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral; D006801:Humans; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010700:Phonetics; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D013028:Space Perception