Introduction
Language is a process of the right hemisphere of the brain. Physical and psychological studies have revealed much in this area, however many studies are still attempting to better understand the questions left to be explained.
In the human brain, a longitudinal fissure effectively divides the brain into two separate parts. These parts, joined by the corpus callosum, are naturally similar to each other while the structure of each half is effectively mimicked by the other side. While it would appear that there is a ‘mirroring’ or some inverse reflection between processes, the functions of each half are different. Psychology usually will create larger and more general explanations that must take care not to be labelled as pseudoscience.
However, acclaimed scientific research has supported many elements of the psychological assumptions, ranging from differences in the makeup of nerve components and the distribution of neurotransmitters. One part of the brain, the lateral sulcus, is generally larger in the left hemisphere, though the reason cannot be determined with any certainty. The degree to which brain function is assigned or specialized within certain areas of the brain is generally still the subject of research. Injuries have been found to impair specific mental processes, while sometimes nearby regions or the opposite hemisphere have been found to attempt to resume the lost functionality.
Lateralisation and neuroscience
While the functions of the brain are lateralized, the lateralization’s themselves change between different brains for any given function. They also differ across specific functions in any given brain. With regards to the popular notion of people either being ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained,’ this is a poor way to classify the brain as people use both parts. Dominance in one hemisphere or the other but is not evident in the popularized way.
This has been found across people who prefer certain hands, certain ears when listening, although even this is not a clear definition of dominance for any hemisphere. While 95 percent of people preferring to use their right hand have a dominant left-hemisphere in the area of language, approximately 19 percent of people preferring their left hand have a dominant right hemisphere regarding language, while furthermore nearly 20 percent of the left-handed individuals were found to have bilateral language functions (Taylor et al, 1990).
This suggests that within the spectrum of components essential to the category of language, such as syntax and semantics, the level of dominance and area of the brain responsible for not only the general category may differ as well as the specifics associated within that category. It is interesting to note here that while language is normally defined by the human mind to have subareas such as language, semantics, and word choice, the activities of the brain do not show such a top-down categorization as far as location or other apparent aspects.
Neuroscience helps people to understand the power of the brain and why it how it works, while this is essential in understanding how language works in the right hemisphere. Specific branches of psychology aid in furthering theory and scientific development in this field, and are thus critically important in the same essential understanding. While psychology has been referred to as a pseudoscience in some situations, there is evidence of reciprocation in the studies of each field while each considers the findings of the other.
Research in cognitive neuroscience provides the most significant findings for the role of the right hemisphere and language, although unfortunately at this point it can be best analysed through the study of damage rather than the study of active processes. This is not to say that studying the brain activity of undamaged brains is not useful by any means, however, technology has not been able to draw the same level of specific conclusions as it has been able to in evaluating the level of brain damage in patients.
Language patterns and psychology
Language patterns have been related to the brain through a variety of studies in psychology, while this information must be analysed and processed in a specific manner in order to avoid being labelled pseudoscience rather than science. Many attempts have been made to understand the underlying reasons for many aspects of language, and to what extent the brain plays a role in the related subtopics. While brain damage has been known to directly affect behavioural patterns in addition to language, this relationship can be studied in an attempt to repair specific damage in an attempt to restore functional aspects of modifying behaviour as well (Frith, 2005).
The name given to the branch of this area is cognitive neuropsychology, and this field brings further understanding to the role the brain has on behaviour while allowing also for a better understanding of the physical brain. This is important to language and the right hemisphere and the fundamentals of cognitive neuropsychology are used in applications of relevant research. Cognitive neuropsychology is one of the most important fields of study in psychology generally because its applications are direct, while the understanding of the brain which results is with regards to tangible and functional aspects, rather than the more subjective loosely diagnosed disorders of clinical and other forms of psychology.
This is especially important in the foundation of continued research because cognitive neuroscience, the branch of cognitive neuropsychology which makes the most direct applications to the physical brain, could not be possible without the studies of neuropsychology. While cognitive neuroscience requires the studies of cognitive neuropsychology, cognitive neuropsychology is a subcategory of cognitive psychology.
Thus, the most critical category as far as research and development to understand the real processes of the human mind can be argued to be cognitive neuropsychology (Humphreys and Riddoch, M., 1994). The understanding of mental abilities, mental development, and behaviour as a result of the functionality of the brain makes cognitive neuropsychology one of the most scientifically relevant topics in building a knowledge base for humanity.
These applications are then used to further cognitive science which then makes the extensions upon medical science which allow people to understand the human mind in scientific regards of physical processes rather than only theorized processes (Coltheart, 2002). As such this entire process is essential in finding the real relationships, rather than any imagined or otherwise not-verifiable ones, to make scientific physiological advances in the area of psychology rather than pseudoscientific ones (Kandel, 2000).
Technology and study
Advancing technology has allowed for increasingly well-performed studies to take place in all areas. Regarding this case, an area of recent interest is computational cognitive neuropsychology, which is based on computerized models for cognition. With this analysts can take a more hands-on approach to analyse the roles of the right hemisphere and language. These models are computer programs that can perform certain cognitive actions including reading out loud, spelling, and other related functions of language (Dehaene, 2005). These models attempt to best emulate the human processes which occur within the brain.
The model can be further analysed in an attempt to gain real information by damaging it in certain ways while also making relations to actual brain damages. Of course, precision is required within the computer programs for the effects and information to be entirely relevant, however as this technology exists increasing emphasis and effort is going into this type of analysis and research in all brain functions (Coltheart, 2002; Toga, 2003).
The conclusions from research on patients with brain damage compared to those without it reveal that the processes involved in language are complimented across processes in each hemisphere. The right side has been found to best interpret visual meanings of specific letters of a language while the left side has been found to respectively recognizing sequences according to the rules of the language. Some studies suggest that the right hemisphere plays more of a role in the processing of language and semantics than it does in other areas (Taylor and Regard, 2003).
This split in the functions with regards to language reflects the levels of complexity and improvisation that are so evident in the nature of most languages. The left hemisphere’s short or long-term impairments have been found to free the same inhibitions on the other side. This type of research suggests that the language potential may reach much farther than previously thought with regards to semantic aspects while the functions commonly thought to be dominated by the left hemisphere may also in fact be included in the potential of the right hemisphere of the brain (Taylor and Regard, 2003).
Concluding remarks
Overall, while it is apparent that significant progress has been made in analysing the functions of the hemispheres in general, only relationships have been found while many strong conclusions remain to be made. Regarding language, psychological and physiological studies have only shown so much, and this is limited to the activities in both hemispheres in relation to many aspects of language which differ across brains and making clear classifications all the more difficult.
Theoretically, the main objective in this area of research is to clearly define the processes between the right and left hemispheres as they conduct the variety of processes associated with language. This objective is central to theory in the processing of language as well as to the understanding of lateralization, and as such, the objective can be fairly considered as being not reached nor likely reached soon. The most promising aspects of research in the future will likely stem from the study and recovery of a variety of brain-damaged patients, while computer modelling and developing technology will slowly enable better perception and analysis of active processes.
It seems quite safe to say that the right hemisphere plays more of a role in language than the left side, despite the findings that each hemisphere has the potential to perform a process. As such it is debatable whether any study will ever be able to clearly define to what extent any person’s right hemisphere may have in language processes. Research suggests that this varies to such an extent that the relationships and locations of processes in the brain may even be dependent on that person’s unique perspective and interactions with the environment.
References
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Dehaene et al (2005). Sources of mathematical thinking: behavioural and brain-imaging evidence. Science.
Frith, C. (1995). Cognitive Neuropsychology of schizophrenia. Psychology Press.
Humphreys, G. and Riddoch, M. (1994). Cognitive Neuropsychology and Cognitive Rehabilitation. London: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Kandel E, Schwartz J, Jessel T. (2000). Principles of Neural Science. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Taylor et al. (1990) Psycholinguistics: Learning and Using Language. Neuroscience.
Taylor, K. and Regard, M. (2003). Language in the Right Cerebral Hemisphere: Contributions from Reading Studies. News in Physiological Sciences.
Toga AW, Thompson PM. (2003). Mapping brain asymmetry. Nat Rev Neuroscience.
Whitworth, A. et al (2005). A Cognitive Neuropsychological Approach to Assessment and Intervention in Aphasia. Hove: Psychology Press.