Neurological Model: Right Hemisphere & Language

Hypothesis Four: Jaynes’s Neurological Model – Subtopic: Right Hemisphere & Language
Julian Jaynes describes an earlier mentality prior to the development of subjective consciousness called the bicameral mind, in which the brain’s hemispheres operated in a less integrated manner than they do today. Jaynes argues that the brain used language to convey experience in the right hemisphere to the left hemisphere in the form of what we would today call an auditory hallucination. Language in the right hemisphere at the time was considered controversial, but has since been confirmed in numerous studies. Below is a small sample of research supporting this aspect of Jaynes’s theory. See also: Jaynes’s Neurological Model

Articles

• The Role of the Right Hemisphere in the Interpretation of Figurative Aspects of Language: A Positron Emission Tomography Activation Study
  Bottini, G., R. Corcoran, R. Sterzi, E. Paulesu, P. Schenone, P. Scarpa, R.S. Frackowiak, and C.D. Frith, Brain, 1994, 117, 6, 1241–1253.
• Metaphor and Metacommunication in Schizophrenic Language
  Frow, John, Social Semiotics, 2001, 11, 3, 275-287.
• Language Lateralization in Healthy Right-Handers
  Knecht, S., M. Deppe, B. Dräger, L. Bobe, H. Lohmann, E.-B. Ringelstein, and H. Henningsen, Brain, January 2000, 123, 1, 74–81.
• Right Hemisphere Language Functions and Schizophrenia: The Forgotten Hemisphere?
  Mitchell, Rachel L. and Tim J. Crow, Brain, 2005, 128, 963–978.
• The Unintegrated Right Cerebral Hemispheric Consciousness as Alien Intruder: A Possible Mechanism for Schneiderian Delusions in Schizophrenia?
  Nasrallah, Henry A., Comprehensive Psychiatry, 1985, 26, 3, 273–282.

Books

Right Hemisphere Language Comprehension: Perspectives From Cognitive Neuroscience Beeman, Mark Jung and Christine Chiarello (eds.) (Psychology Press, 2013) The statement, “The Right Hemisphere (RH) processes language” — while not exactly revolutionary — still provokes vigorous debate. It often elicits the argument that anything the RH does with language is not linguistic but “paralinguistic.” The resistance to the notion of RH language processing persists despite the fact that even the earliest observers of Left Hemisphere (LH) language specialization posited some role for the RH in language processing, and evidence attesting to various RH language processes has steadily accrued for more than 30 years. In this volume, chapters pertain to a wide, but by no means, exhaustive set of language comprehension processes for which RH contributions have been demonstrated. The chapters assembled here should begin to melt this resistance to evidence of RH language processing.