Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 10, 2026

Conscious and Non-conscious Representations of Emotional Faces in Asperger's Syndrome
Published on: July 31, 2016
Aging affects hemispheric asymmetry on a competing speech task
1Program in Applied Cognition and Neuroscience, School of Human Development, University of Texas at Dallas, USA.
Abstract:
This study examined the effects of aging on the hemispheric asymmetry of event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked by morphosyntactic anomalies in a competing speech paradigm. The experimental groups consisted of children, young adults, and elderly persons. The ERPs were recorded from 32 scalp sites while participants listened to a continuous narrative presented quasidichotically via loudspeakers. Participants responded when they heard an anomalous word embedded within a popular fairy tale. Anomalous words evoked a robust positivity in the 700- to 900-msec latency range in all participants. Comparison of area measures from waveforms at the lateral frontal, frontotemporal, temporal, temporoparietal, and parietal electrode sites revealed asymmetry in hemispheric positivity. In children and young adults, asymmetry peaked in the 600- to 800-msec range and favored the left hemisphere in both target-right and target-left conditions. In seniors, however, asymmetry peaked at 1100 msec, favored the left hemisphere in the target-right condition, and favored the right hemisphere in the target-left condition. These results support the concept that aging affects hemispheric asymmetry during linguistic processing.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Higher Mental Functions of the Brain: Language
Language formation and comprehension take place in the dominant hemisphere. The dominant hemisphere is responsible for understanding the meaning of spoken, written, or sign language, as well as the ability to communicate. For most people, the left hemisphere is the dominant one. The right hemisphere, then, gives tone and emotional context to the...
Cerebral Hemispheres
Lateralization
Language and Cognition

