Extralinguistic pragmatic ability in right hemisphere brain damaged patients.

Our study investigates the ability of right brain damaged patients to deal with different pragmatic phenomena. In particular, we focus on comprehension of direct and indirect communicative acts, deceits, ironies and communicative failures, all realized through extralinguistic means. The results of our study, which are consistent with the literature on linguistic pragmatics in right hemisphere injured patients, fully confirm our predictions concerning trends in difficulty of comprehension. Cognitive Pragmatics theory, which is our framework of reference, is strengthened by the results of the present study.