A dual-task study of sex differences in language reception and production

The notion that females may be less lateralized than males for language reception was tested using a variant of the dual-task technique with 20 normal right-handed subjects. A unimanual tapping task was paired with one language reception task, and two language production tasks (one purely cognitive and the other requiring both cognitive and vocal involvement). Performance was impaired in all treatment conditions, regardless of hand used. Most impairment was, however, found in right-hand performance during the vocal condition. No sex differences were found.