Hemispheric balance in coding speech and non-speech sounds in Chinese participants

Abstract

To study the role of neuromagnetic auditory ∼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 ∼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.