Damage to which region results in fluent but nonsensical or 'wordy' speech?

• A. Broca's area
• B. Wernicke's area
• C. Hippocampus
• D. Cerebellum

Answer: (B)

Language processing hinges on specialized left-hemisphere regions that map sounds to meaning. When the region that handles comprehension in the posterior part of the superior temporal gyrus is damaged, you get fluent but meaningless speech—speech that flows well in terms of articulation but lacks content. This is because the ability to understand and select appropriate meanings is disrupted, so words are produced fluently yet without coherent semantics, often with paraphasias or invented terms. The motor system for speaking remains intact, so the speech sounds normal in tempo and rhythm, even though it doesn’t convey real ideas. This pattern contrasts with damage to the frontal language area, which causes nonfluent, halting speech with relatively preserved comprehension, while memory-related structures like the hippocampus or coordination hubs like the cerebellum affect memory or movement rather than language meaning.