Modulating Cerebral Asymmetries for Language

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In the normal human brain, most cognitive behaviors depend on the conjoint functioning of the left and right cerebral hemispheres. The aim of this research is to discover how characteristics of the stimulus environment influence the dynamic distribution of function between these two neural systems. Specifically, the planned studies will investigate the role of stimulus variation in promoting the conjoint use of the differing computational biases of the left and right hemispheres during language processing. It is argued that variation in the types of words experienced in a given context potentiates a right hemisphere processing bias towards imageable, semantically-rich, noun-like words, and a complementary left hemisphere processing bias towards abstract, semantically-sparse, verb-like forms. The planned experiments will employ a multi-task approach to investigate whether hemisphere-specific processing biases are modifiable based on relative vs absolute differences between words, and whether they can be potentiated by increasing the distinctiveness or heterogeneity of the stimulus context. Additional experiments will determine whether it is task complexity or stimulus heterogeneity that modulates the distribution of function across hemispheres, and identify the time course of such changes. The goal of this research is to better understand how the architecture of the human brain supports language behavior and, most importantly, how the use of different neural systems can be environmentally modulated. The latter has both theoretical and applied significance. While we cannot alter the manner in which different brain regions process information, we can potentially modify characteristics of the linguistic environment, particularly in educational settings.