Hemispheric dominance in reading system alters contribution to face processing lateralization across development.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• The right hemisphere typically dominates face processing.
• Neural lateralization can be influenced by co-lateralization and inter-system interactions, such as neural competition from reading acquisition.
• Developmental changes in these lateralization patterns remain largely unexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate age-related changes in the lateralization of core face and word processing.
• To examine how relationships between lateralization within and between neural systems evolve during development.
• To explore the impact of reading acquisition on face processing lateralization across age groups.

Main Methods:

• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to compare brain activity.
• Participants included 36 school-aged children and 40 young adults.
• Passive viewing of faces and texts was employed to assess neural lateralization.

Main Results:

• Both children and adults showed right-hemispheric lateralization for face processing and left-hemispheric for reading.
• Stronger lateralization in higher-order brain regions was observed for face viewing in all participants, and for text viewing only in adults.
• Intra-system co-lateralization was present for face processing in both groups; inter-system relationships, specifically negative prediction of FFA asymmetry by Broca's area lateralization, were found only in adults.

Conclusions:

• Significant developmental shifts occur in the lateralization of face and word processing systems.
• Neural competition between reading and face perception, impacting functional asymmetry, emerges in adulthood.
• Provides initial neuroimaging evidence for the reading-induced neural competition theory from a maturational perspective in Chinese cohorts.