My research investigates the organization of language function in the brain. One long-standing research interest is to understand how the bilateral design of the human cerebral cortex affects the way in which people process language and perform other cognitive functions. My lab has explored the contributions of the right cerebral hemisphere to language processing, and documented that this "nonverbal" hemisphere in fact plays an important role in the comprehension of linguistic meaning. This research has indicated that the right hemisphere has a broader, less focused form of meaning activation that can provide a platform for a variety of linguistic processes that complement those of the left hemisphere.