Gender differences in functional hemispheric asymmetry during processing of vowels as reflected by the human brain magnetic response

被引:33
作者
Obleser, J
Eulitz, C
Lahiri, A
Elbert, T
机构
[1] Univ Konstanz, Dept Psychol, D-78457 Constance, Germany
[2] Univ Konstanz, Dept Linguist, Constance, Germany
关键词
magnetoencephalography; N100; laterality; sex differences; speech representation; hemispheric asymmetry; vowels;
D O I
10.1016/S0304-3940(01)02298-4
中图分类号
Q189 [神经科学];
学科分类号
071006 ;
摘要
A number of findings indicate gender differences in language-related functional hemispheric brain asymmetry. To test if such gender-specific laterality is already present at the level of vowel-processing, the auditory evoked magnetic field was recorded in healthy right-handed male and female participants in response to the German synthetic vowels [a], [e] and [i]. Female participants exhibited stronger N100m responses than male participants over the left hemisphere. This observation was highly reliable across repeated experimental sessions. The present lateralization shows that previous findings suggesting a stronger left-hemispheric dominance for verbal material in males than in females can not be generalized to basic speech elements. Furthermore, the present results support the importance of controlling for gender ratio in studies of phonetic processing. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
引用
收藏
页码:131 / 134
页数:4
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