Acousticsversuslinguistics? Context is Part and Parcel to lateralized processing of the parts and parcels of speech

Anti-phasic oscillatory development for speech and noise processing in cochlear implanted toddlers

“…Interestingly, after auditory deprivation early in life, the only cortical region responsive to sounds is the right ATL (Figure 2C & S1). This observation is consistent with previous brain imaging demonstrations that the normal hearing neonates showed clear right hemisphere dominance for non-linguistic aspects of auditory processing (Perani, Saccuman et al 2010, Arimitsu, Uchida-Ota et al 2011, Bisiacchi and Cainelli 2021, Bourke and Todd 2021). In normal hearing adults, the rATL is associated with voice and speaker identity processing (Kriegstein and Giraud 2004, Elia, Formisano et al 2008, Andics, Mcqueen et al 2010, Bestelmeyer, Belin et al 2011, Andics, Mcqueen et al 2013, Bonte, Hausfeld et al 2014).…”

“…Overall, the current study indicates a clear distinction in developmental emphases for the left and right hemisphere from the onset of (restored) hearing: The left hemisphere, primarily the areas next from the auditory cortex in the ventral and dorsal streams of speech processing, appears to strive to acquire listening and speaking abilities concurrently, while the right hemisphere appears responsible for non-linguistic aspects of auditory processing. Thus, the current results provide longitudinal developmental evidence for theories of functional asymmetries of the brain (Perani, Saccuman et al 2010, Arimitsu, Uchida-Ota et al 2011, Bisiacchi and Cainelli 2021, Bourke and Todd 2021, Hartwigsen, Bengio et al 2021).…”

Different hemispheric lateralization for periodicity and formant structure of vowels in the auditory cortex and its changes between childhood and adulthood

“…The latter findings also do not fit the basic assumptions of the 'domain specificity' framework that links left hemisphere dominance for speech perception to linguistic-semantic mechanisms (Bourke & Todd, 2021;Bozic, Tyler, Ives, Randall, & Marslen-Wilson, 2010;Scott & McGettigan, 2013). Concerning speech sounds, this hypothesis asserts that their leftward lateralization occurs at a relatively high -semantic -level of speech processing when a speech sound appears in the context of a meaningful word but is lacking for isolated speech sounds (Shtyrov et al, 2005).…”

“…The ‘domain general’ account suggests that the preferential processing of speech in the left hemisphere is due to an acoustic bias between the two hemispheres that favors the left-hemispheric processing of short speech sounds, such as consonants and/or rapid formant transitions in syllables. In contrast, the ‘domain specific’ account relates left hemispheric dominance to the linguistic features of speech (see (Bourke & Todd, 2021; Scott & McGettigan, 2013) for discussion). However, it is still unclear whether lateralization is related to semantic representation (Shtyrov, Pihko, & Pulvermüller, 2005) or occurs already during phonetic categorization (Bourke & Todd, 2021; Hornickel, Skoe, & Kraus, 2009).…”

“…In contrast, the ‘domain specific’ account relates left hemispheric dominance to the linguistic features of speech (see (Bourke & Todd, 2021; Scott & McGettigan, 2013) for discussion). However, it is still unclear whether lateralization is related to semantic representation (Shtyrov, Pihko, & Pulvermüller, 2005) or occurs already during phonetic categorization (Bourke & Todd, 2021; Hornickel, Skoe, & Kraus, 2009). The issue is further complicated by changes in the relative contributions of the right and left hemispheres to speech perception during ontogeny (Nora et al, 2017; Olulade et al, 2020; Szaflarski, Holland, Schmithorst, & Byars, 2006).…”