Role of the hemispheres in

language: Split brain

studies

April 2nd , 2008

‘Split brain’ pioneers
 Roger Sperry  Michael
Gazzaniga
‘Split brain’ studies
Early studies looked at:
 Functional specialization (left vs

right)
 Whether information can cross

hemispheres
 Tachistoscope experiment

The man says he sees the

word the word ‘ring’. But
his hand picks out the
key. Afterward, he says
he doesn’t know why.

Q. 1: What is going
on…?
How?
 Left visual field
(LVF) info is
processed by
the right
hemisphere
 And vice
versa…
 Control of hand is preferentially
laterized to opposite hemisphere
 Right hemisphere can mobilize a
nonverbal response, but not verbal
 Left hemisphere is (usually) dominant
for language and speech
 Right excels at visual-motor tasks
“I didn’t see any spoon”
Can the two halves ‘talk’ to each
other?
Early studies suggested that semantic info
cannot cross between hemispheres, if the
corpus callosum has been severed.
 But hemispheres are joined by many neuronal

bridges (commissures)
 The C.C. is largest, but not the only one

 Can language cross other paths…?

A case for subcortical transfer?
(II)
Kingstone and Gazzaniga 96
 Flashed two words to a patient (JW) and

asked him to draw what he saw.

 ‘bow’ flashed to one hemisphere

 ‘arrow’ flashed to other hemisphere

Q. What did the patient draw?

Kingstone’s experiment: part 1
Kingstone’s experiment: part 1
 Appeared that brain had integrated
the words across the hemispheres
 One hemisphere had then directed
one hand to draw the resulting
object
 However…
Kingstone’s experiment: part 2
 Next, used conceptually ambiguous
word pairs, i.e. can combine to make
an ‘emergent’ object (not just literal)
 “sky” was flashed to one hemisphere
 “scraper” flashed to other hemisphere

Q. What did the patient draw?

Kingstone’s experiment: part 2
Kingstone’s experiment: part 2
 Emergent objects (skyscraper,
toadstool, see-saw) were never
drawn with either hand, only literal
combinations
 For ‘bow & arrow’, patient was
relying on visual feedback
 Semantic integration is therefore
“on the paper, not in the brain”
The strange case of ‘V.J.’
 Q4a. What was so
unusual about the
patient in Baynes’
study?
 Q4b. How might
the results be
explained?
 The strange case of ‘V.J.’
 Left-handed woman with left-brain
dominance for spoken language
 Words flashed to right brain could not be
read or spoken but could be written (with
difficulty)
 Pictures flashed to her right brain could not
be named or written
 Words flashed to left hemisphere could be
read and spoken, but could not be written
Why?
 V.J.’s left hemisphere controls speech
and reading, but NOT writing
 V.J.’s right hemisphere controls writing,
but not reading, speech of ability to find
right name for an object
 First time that speaking and writing
were shown to lie on opposite sides of
brain
 Previously assumed that virtually all language
abilities found in left hemisphere - even for
people who are left-handed
 10% of people are left-handed
 80% of l-h have all language in left side
 In some, all language is in right brain
 In VJ’s case – mixed up, left/right
 November 26, 1996

Workings of Split Brain Challenge Notions of How

Language Evolved

By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
LAST year, a 43-year-old woman who had suffered from
terrible seizures since she was 16 underwent surgery to
cut the thick band of fibers connecting the left and right
hemispheres of her brain.
Q.
 What implications does Baynes’

study have for the way that we

view the evolution of language?
How did language evolve?
 Spoken language – 100,000 years old
 Reading/writing arose less than 10,000
years ago
 Cultural invention, rather than biological
evolution
 Previously assumed that reading/writing
laid on top of speech
 VJ case suggests that writing (and
reading?) arose separately from
spoken language
 ‘Newer’ linguistic skills like writing
and reading may be wired up in the
brain wherever there are “spare
areas” (Pinker)