Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 7, 2026

Assessment of Cerebral Lateralization in Children using Functional Transcranial Doppler Ultrasound (fTCD)
Published on: September 27, 2010
Task-dependent laterality for cue decoding during spoken language processing
S Imaizumi1, K Mori, S Kiritani
1Department of Speech and Cognitive Sciences, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo, Japan.
Abstract:
The task-dependent laterality of the auditory cortices was investigated by measuring the magnetic fields elicited by three forms of a Japanese verb, which differed in terms of prosodic and phonetic cues. Significant task-dependent magnetic fields were found in both hemispheres during a prosody-related task, but only in the left during a phoneme-related task. The latency was similar to the mismatch negatively which reflects the neural activity of automatic cue decoding. These results suggest that task-dependent schemata are activated at least partially in parallel with automatic cue-decoding processes such that those in the left hemisphere process linguistic information irrespective of acoustic cues whereas those in the right hemisphere process prosodic information.
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...
Lateralization
Language and Cognition
Non-Verbal Cues

