Sign activates the auditory area.

[David Corina]

I have not yet seen the Nature article, but it is important
to understand the claim that is being made, that processing of
sign language is showing activation in AUDITORY cortex in deaf individual.
This is a very interesting and new finding, and much more
specific that simply saying that "left hemisphere language
areas are involved in sign language processing" (which
has been well establised in many labs by now).

Neville presented some recent data suggesting activation
in auditory cortex for *visual motion stimuli* at Society
for Neurosciences this year.

However, one needs to closely examine this new Nature article
to evaluate the claims of Sign Language processing in A1, especially in
light of of recent MEG data collected by G. Hickok at UC Irvine.


David Corina
Dept. of Psychology
University of Washington
Seattle WA 98195