The human brain shows functional and structural hemispheric asymmetries for various cognitive functions such as language. One of the most replicated findings in behavioural laterality research is the so-called right ear advantage in the dichotic listening task, which is observed in 60 different languages and language families. However, it could not be replicated for whistle languages. Previous research on whistled Turkish has shown the absence of asymmetry on the behavioural level. Therefore, the current study focuses on the investigation of asymmetric electrophysiological processes to map the auditory processing as well as the comprehension of spoken versus whistled syllables. Electrophysiological recordings captured during dichotic listening were obtained from 117 participants consisting of proficient Spanish whistlers and two control groups from two different language families. The design of the study intended to generate potential novel insights into whistle languages’ unique neural aspects. While the right-ear advantage was replicated, an unexpected tendency towards faster right-hemispheric involvement was observed. Most importantly, the left hemisphere turned out to play a crucial function in the perception, processing, and comprehension of whistled syllables in Spanish whistlers. In light of its potential clinical value, future research in this field leveraging modern multimodal fusion approaches is needed to further elucidate the neuronal mechanisms underlying the functional and structural asymmetries of this communication method.
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