Signed Language and Speech Use Same Part of Brain, Researchers Say

Words are words, whether spoken or signed, when it comes to brainpower. People who grew up speaking and those who grew up signing language use the same parts of the brain to interpret words or word parts. More important, one of those areas had been thought to process only speech because it is hooked directly to the auditory nerve, Laura Ann Petitto of McGill University in Montreal announced Tuesday at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in New Orleans.

“Now we see signed languages processed in that area,” she said. “How could it be possible? What is that tissue responsible for?”

She and researcher Robert Zatorre compared brain scans of people who either saw a printed noun on video and spoke a related verb, or watched a videotaped signed noun and responded with a signed verb. In both cases, higher flows were seen in two areas, one linked to the mouth and one near the ear.