TY - JOUR
T1 - The role of spectral and durational properties on hemispheric asymmetries in vowel perception
AU - Britton, Brendan
AU - Blumstein, Sheila E.
AU - Myers, Emily B.
AU - Grindrod, Christopher
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported in part by the Dana Foundation, NIH Grant DC006220 to Brown University and the Ittelson Foundation. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders or the National Institutes of Health. Reprint requests and correspondence should be sent to Sheila Blumstein, Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, Brown University, 190 Thayer St., Box 1978, Providence, RI 02912; [email protected] .
PY - 2009/3
Y1 - 2009/3
N2 - The aim of the current study is to investigate potential hemispheric asymmetries in the perception of vowels and the influence of different time scales on such asymmetries. Activation patterns for naturally produced vowels were examined at three durations encompassing a short (75 ms), medium (150 ms), and long (300 ms) integration time window in a discrimination task. A set of 5 corresponding non-speech sine wave tones were created with frequencies matching the second formant of each vowel. Consistent with earlier hypotheses, there was a right hemisphere preference in the superior temporal gyrus for the processing of spectral information for both vowel and tone stimuli. However, observed laterality differences for vowels and tones were a function of heightened right hemisphere sensitivity to long integration windows, whereas the left hemisphere showed sensitivity to both long and short integration windows. Although there were a number of similarities in the processing of vowels and tones, differences also emerged suggesting that even fairly early in the processing stream at the level of the STG, different mechanisms are recruited for processing vowels and tones.
AB - The aim of the current study is to investigate potential hemispheric asymmetries in the perception of vowels and the influence of different time scales on such asymmetries. Activation patterns for naturally produced vowels were examined at three durations encompassing a short (75 ms), medium (150 ms), and long (300 ms) integration time window in a discrimination task. A set of 5 corresponding non-speech sine wave tones were created with frequencies matching the second formant of each vowel. Consistent with earlier hypotheses, there was a right hemisphere preference in the superior temporal gyrus for the processing of spectral information for both vowel and tone stimuli. However, observed laterality differences for vowels and tones were a function of heightened right hemisphere sensitivity to long integration windows, whereas the left hemisphere showed sensitivity to both long and short integration windows. Although there were a number of similarities in the processing of vowels and tones, differences also emerged suggesting that even fairly early in the processing stream at the level of the STG, different mechanisms are recruited for processing vowels and tones.
KW - Laterality
KW - Perception
KW - Speech
KW - Vowel
KW - fMRI
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=60549107272&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=60549107272&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2008.12.033
DO - 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2008.12.033
M3 - Article
C2 - 19162052
AN - SCOPUS:60549107272
SN - 0028-3932
VL - 47
SP - 1096
EP - 1106
JO - Neuropsychologia
JF - Neuropsychologia
IS - 4
ER -