Language processing dominates left-hemisphere networks while the right hemisphere handles communication context.

Evidence

Speech understanding involves complex multimodal networks involving vision, hearing and sensory motor areas as well as memory and frontal lobe functions mostly in the left hemisphere (LH), and encompasses a range of elements such as phonology, semantics, and syntactics. The right hemisphere (RH) has fewer specialised functions for language processing, and its role is mostly in the evaluation of the communication context (Vigneau et al. 2011 ). Imaging studies have shown that adults who have undergone periods of profound post-lingual deafness demonstrate changes in brain activity and function in language-associated brain areas that are not observed in normally-hearing individuals, and that further functional plasticity occurs as a result of cochlear implantation. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4276

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the left/right hemisphere division of labor in language, a theme familiar from aphasiology (Broca/Wernicke) and neuroscience of speech. — connects to: Watching engaging television triggers measurable neurological relaxation and hemisphere switching — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1108
• DEFINE: Establishes LH/RH division of language labor and that post-lingual deafness reshapes language brain areas.