The Role of the Left Parietal Lobe in the Mediation of Intra-and Cross-Modal Associations

Abstract

The present study assesses the role of the dominant angular gyrus region in the mediation of intra- and cross-modal associations. Patients with dominant parietal lobe damage (as defined by brain scan and behavioral deficits) were impaired on auditory-visual, tactual-visual and visual-tactual cross-modal matching tasks. Some parietal patients were also impaired on tactual-tactual matches, but this intra-modal deficit was dissociable from the cross-modal deficiencies. Patients with frontal-temporal lesions were as a group unimpaired on all intra- and cross-modal tasks. Deficits on auditory-visual matches were closely associated with reading disabilities suggesting that this associative capacity serves as a prerequisite for reading.