SUPPRESSION AND DISCOURSE COMPREHENSION IN RIGHT BRAIN-DAMAGED ADULTS- A PRELIMINARY-REPORT

Eighteen right-hemisphere-damaged (RHD) and 15 control subjects listen ed to sentences that ended in lexical ambiguities. The sentence verbs biased ambiguity interpretation. Probe words, representing unbiased me anings of the ambiguities, were presented for rapid judgements of thei r fit with the sentences. In rejecting probe words, both groups showed interference from unbiased meanings of the ambiguities at a short (17 5 ms) probe interval. Only RHD adults demonstrated interference 1000 m s after sentence offset, indicating that they suppressed contextually inappropriate meanings less effectively than control subjects. Discour se comprehension performance in RHD adults was also correlated with su ppression. Theoretical and clinical implications are considered.