Hemispheric lateralization in preattentive processing of speech sounds.
Event-related magnetoencephalographic (MEG) responses to infrequently presented spoken deviant syllables [di] and [ba] among repetitive standard [da)]syllables were recorded in subjects who either attended to these stimuli in order to discriminate the [ba] syllables or ignored them while attending a silent movie. In both conditions, the deviant syllables elicited a mismatch response (MMNm, the magnetic counterpart of mismatch negativity), which was stronger in the left than in the right auditory cortex, indicating left-hemispheric dominance in speech processing already at a preattentive processing level.
Alho
K
K
Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, Finland. kalho@helsinki.fi
Connolly
J F
JF
Cheour
M
M
Lehtokoski
A
A
Huotilainen
M
M
Virtanen
J
J
Aulanko
R
R
Ilmoniemi
R J
RJ
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004585:Electrooculography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D015225:Magnetoencephalography; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*