Cerebral specialization and hemispheric performance asymmetries in narrative memory.

Data on cerebral specialization derived from studies of human head-injuries have long implicated the left hemisphere's critical role in speech processing and verbal memory. We report a relatively simple paradigm which demonstrates an analogous asymmetry in narrative recall performance in normal subjects when either one hemisphere or the other is concurrently engaged with control of a secondary motor task. Caution in generalizing these data to performance asymmetries in brain-injured patients is nevertheless required.