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Published online 26 May 2005 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news050523-9
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Stroke patients shed light on metaphors
US team finds key part of the brain that decodes figurative speech.
Most people understand that the proverb 'The grass is always greener on the other side' has a deeper, more general meaning: someone else's situation always looks more attractive than your own.
But people with defects in a small area of the cerebral cortex called the left angular gyrus take such sentences literally, US researchers have found.
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