The left parietal lobe has been proposed as a major language area. However, parietal cortical function is more usually considered in terms of the control of actions, contributing both to attention and cross-modal integration of external and reafferent sensory cues. We used positron emission tomography to study normal subjects while they overtly generated narratives, both spoken and written. The...

A new study has found that, when a macaque monkey chooses where to look, activity in parietal cortex reflects anticipated reward value, whether from fluid to drink or from social information such as dominance.

Understanding others' sequences of action is a fundamental aspect of human movement and is the key to detecting goal directed behavior and intentional actions. Human action contains semantic information whereby logical chains of events are entirely dependent on the sequence in which they are performed. The sequential nature of action ensures that an observing individual anticipates the conclusi...

Handwriting is a classic example of how the details of movement can be scale and plane invariant: letter forms reflecting personal style are unchanged, whether one is writing on a piece of paper, on a blackboard or in the sand using the foot. Recent research points to a role for the parietal cortex in such motor equivalence.