title: Hemispheric processing of vocal emblem sounds.
abstract: Vocal emblems, such as shh and brr, are speech sounds that have linguistic and nonlinguistic features; thus, it is unclear how they are processed in the brain. Five adult dextral individuals with left-brain damage and moderate-severe Wernicke's aphasia, five adult dextral individuals with right-brain damage, and five Controls participated in two tasks: (1) matching vocal emblems to photographs ('picture task') and (2) matching vocal emblems to verbal translations ('phrase task'). Cross-group statistical analyses on items on which the Controls performed at ceiling revealed lower accuracy by the group with left-brain damage (than by Controls) on both tasks, and lower accuracy by the group with right-brain damage (than by Controls) on the picture task. Additionally, the group with left-brain damage performed significantly less accurately than the group with right-brain damage on the phrase task only. Findings suggest that comprehension of vocal emblems recruits more left- than right-hemisphere processing.
authors.affiliation: Queens College, City University of New York, Linguistics and Communication Disorders, Flushing, NY 11367, USA. Yael.Neumann@qc.cuny.edu
authors.forename: Yael
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Neumann-Werth
authors.forename: Erika S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Levy
authors.forename: Loraine K
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Obler
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001037:Aphasia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D014899:Wernicke Encephalopathy / Q000503:physiopathology*