Right and Left Hemisphere Cooperation for Drawing Predictive and Coherence Inferences during Normal Story Comprehension

doi:10.1006/brln.1999.2268

Brain and Language

Volume 71, Issue 2, February 2000, Pages 310-336

https://doi.org/10.1006/brln.1999.2268 Get rights and content

Abstract

In three experiments, healthy young participants listened to stories promoting inferences and named inference-related test words presented to the right visual field–Left Hemisphere (rvf-LH) or to the left visual field–Right Hemisphere (lvf-RH). Participants showed priming for predictive inferences only for target words presented to the lvf-RH; in contrast, they showed priming for coherence inferences only for target words presented to the rvf-LH. These results, plus the fact that patients with RH brain damage have difficulty drawing coherence inferences and do not show inference-related priming, suggest that information capable of supporting predictive inferences is more likely to be initially activated in the RH than the LH, but following coherence breaks these concepts (now coherence inferences) are completed in the LH. These results are consistent with the theory that the RH engages in relatively coarse semantic coding, which aids full comprehension of discourse.

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^☆: This work was supported in part by Grant R29 DC02160 from the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders, NIH, to M.J.B. and by Grant RO1 NS 29926 from NIH and Army Research Institute awards DASW0194-K-0004, DASW0196-K-0013, and DAAG55-97-1-0224 to M.A.G. Thanks to Jim Tanaka, Marie Banich, Christine Chiarello, Art Graesser, and Edward O'Brien for useful comments on an earlier versions of the manuscript. Thanks to the following people for help with stimulus preparation and data collection: Caroline Bollinger, Julie Foertsch, Kim Hassenfeld, Donald Haughton, Dana Janes, Ying Lu, Rachel Roberston, Geeta Shivde, Beth Travis, and Linda Whitcombe. Correspondence and reprint requests should be addressed to Mark Jung Beeman, Rush Cognitive Neuroscience Section, 1645 West Jackson Boulevard, Suite 450, Chicago, IL 60612, E-mail: [email protected].

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Regular ArticleRight and Left Hemisphere Cooperation for Drawing Predictive and Coherence Inferences during Normal Story Comprehension☆

Abstract

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

Brain and Language

Brain and Language

Brain and Language

Brain and Language

Brain and Language

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

Brain and Language

Journal of Memory and Language

Brain and Language

Brain and Language

Journal of Memory and Language

Journal of Memory and Language

Cognitive Psychology

Journal of Memory and Language

Brain and Language

Brain and Language

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

Journal of Memory and Language

Brain and Language

Brain and Language

Brain and Language

Time course of activating brain areas in generating verbal associations

Psychological Science

Selection for action: Some behavioral and neurophysiological considerations of attention and action

The sum of the parts does not equal the whole: Evidence from bihemispheric processing

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance

Integration of processing between the hemispheres in word recognition

Coarse semantic coding and discourse comprehension

Sum-mation priming and coarse coding in the right hemisphere

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

The role of the right hemisphere in the interpretation of figurative aspects of language: A positron emission tomography activation study

Brain

Getting the right idea: Semantic activation in the right hemisphere may help solve insight problems

Psychological Science

Hemispheric processing of ambiguous words

Brain and Language

Predictive inferences occur on-line, but with delay: Convergence of naming and reading times

Discourse Processes

Regular Article
Right and Left Hemisphere Cooperation for Drawing Predictive and Coherence Inferences during Normal Story Comprehension☆