Hemispheric asymmetries in auditory evoked neuromagnetic fields in response to place of articulation contrasts

A growing body of evidence indicates bilateral but asymmetric hemispheric involvement in speech perception. We used magnetoencephalography to record neuromagnetic evoked responses in 10 adults to consonant-vowel syllables that differ in a single phonetic feature, place of articulation. We report differential activation patterns in M100 latency, with larger differences in the right hemisphere than the left. These findings suggest that left and right auditory fields make differential contributions to speech processing. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.