WORD FLUENCY AFTER A RIGHT-HEMISPHERE LESION

Joanette and Goulet (Neuropsychologia, 1986, 24, 875-879) reported tha t right-handed patients suffering from a right-hemisphere stroke were impaired on semantic but not on orthographic criteria when they were s ubmitted to a word fluency task. The interpretation of this dissociati on was that the right hemisphere would; subtend a particular contribut ion to the semantic component of word processing in right handers. The goal of the research reported here was to challenge this dissociation . In contrast with the first study, the production criteria were prese nted randomly and their level of productivity was a controlled factor. The semantic-orthographic dissociation was not replicated under these conditions. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.