Hemispheric balance in coding speech and non-speech sounds in Chinese participants.
To study the role of neuromagnetic auditory approximately 100-ms responses (N100m) in phonetic processing, we recorded N100m in 24 right-handed Chinese participants using a whole-head neuromagnetometer. The stimuli included vowel /a/ and consonant-vowels /ba/ and /da/, spoken by one Chinese speaker, and a 1-kHz tone. N100m to tones was larger in the right hemisphere, whereas that to speech sounds was bilaterally similar. The amplitude ratio of speech to non-speech N100m was larger in the left hemisphere. N100m dipoles in the left hemisphere were approximately 2 mm more anterior for speech than for tone stimuli. The results suggest that N100m reflects both acoustics and phonetic processing. Moreover, the ratio of speech to non-speech activation in individual hemispheres may be useful for language lateralization.
Lin
Yung-Yang
YY
Department of Medical Research and Education, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan. yylin@vghtpe.gov.tw
Chen
Wei-Ta
WT
Liao
Kwong-Kum
KK
Yeh
Tzu-Chen
TC
Wu
Zin-An
ZA
Ho
Low-Tone
LT
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D044466:Asian People; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D015225:Magnetoencephalography / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors