Cerebral specialization and hemispheric performance asymmetries in narrative memory.
Data on cerebral specialization derived from studies of human head-injuries have long implicated the left hemisphere's critical role in speech processing and verbal memory. We report a relatively simple paradigm which demonstrates an analogous asymmetry in narrative recall performance in normal subjects when either one hemisphere or the other is concurrently engaged with control of a secondary motor task. Caution in generalizing these data to performance asymmetries in brain-injured patients is nevertheless required.
D001288:Attention; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory; D011939:Mental Recall; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D013067:Speech Perception