Oral vs. manual tapping with delayed auditory feedback as measures of cerebral dominance

Two sets of findings have been reported which make contradictory claims about the cerebral lateralization of mechanisms for coordinating auditory feedback with motor control. One difficulty in evaluating the two sets of claims is that they result from experiments involving methodologies which are different enough to make direct comparisons difficult. The present study reports results of an experiment using a technique which partially bridges the gap between two of these paradigms. This technique involves examining the effect of delayed auditory feedback (DAF) on performance of both an oral and a manual tapping task. Ear of delivery of DAF, subject language background, and nature of the auditory stimulus were the experimental variables. The findings support the claim that the left hemisphere is differentially involved in the use of auditory feedback to control oral, but not manual, motor activity. No evidence was found to indicate that this functional cerebral asymmetry is stimulus- or language-dependent.