There is a lively debate in the literature about the specific roles of the two cerebral hemispheres in processing figurative language. The aim of the present study was to investigate this matter further and to compare the time courses of literal and idiomatic language processing. Fifteen right-handed Italian volunteers were asked to read 360 idiomatic and literal Italian sentences silently and decide whether they were semantically related or unrelated to a following target word, while their EEGs were recorded from 128 scalp sites. Our data indicate bilateral involvement of both hemispheres in idiom comprehension, with a special role for the right hemisphere and particularly the right MTG after 350 ms and the right medial frontal gyrus in the time windows 270-300 and 500-780 ms. In addition, the activation of left and right limbic regions (400-450 ms) suggests that they have a role in the emotional connotation of colourful idiomatic language. The data support the view that there is direct access to the idiomatic meaning of figurative language, not dependent on the suppression of its literal meaning.
Neural basis of idiomatic language comprehension
Zani A
2009
Abstract
There is a lively debate in the literature about the specific roles of the two cerebral hemispheres in processing figurative language. The aim of the present study was to investigate this matter further and to compare the time courses of literal and idiomatic language processing. Fifteen right-handed Italian volunteers were asked to read 360 idiomatic and literal Italian sentences silently and decide whether they were semantically related or unrelated to a following target word, while their EEGs were recorded from 128 scalp sites. Our data indicate bilateral involvement of both hemispheres in idiom comprehension, with a special role for the right hemisphere and particularly the right MTG after 350 ms and the right medial frontal gyrus in the time windows 270-300 and 500-780 ms. In addition, the activation of left and right limbic regions (400-450 ms) suggests that they have a role in the emotional connotation of colourful idiomatic language. The data support the view that there is direct access to the idiomatic meaning of figurative language, not dependent on the suppression of its literal meaning.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
