Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

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Open Access Thesis

Keywords

Language and languages--Physiological aspects; Neurolinguistics;

Abstract

Dichotic listening tasks have been used extensively to establish the left cerebral hemisphere as dominant for linguistic processing. Dichotic stress has also been used to investigate lateralization patterns for individuals who speak more than one language and if those patterns differ from those found in monolingual speakers. Most investigations of this nature, with both monolingual and bilingual subjects, have found a right ear advantage (REA) for linguistic processing. Voice onset time (VOT) is the acoustic parameter primarily responsible for the categorical discrimination of stop consonants in a number of different languages, including English and Spansih [sic]. It has been found that the knowledge of more than one language will change the expected categorical boundaries between the stop cognates. It has also been demonstrated that the reaction time (RT) for right ear responses during a dichotic listening task are consistently faster than RTs associated with left ear responses. These faster RTs have been presented as further evidence for left hemisphere superiority in the processing of both linguistic output and input. The purpose of the following study was an attempt to utilize dichotic listening techniques and reaction time measures to obtain more information pertaining to the manner in which linguistic information is perceived and processed. Since mixed language stimuli at the phonological level were employed there was a special interest in determining to what extent language learning history will affect a listener's perceptions at the phonological level under conditions of dichotic stress. Twenty adults, all right-handed, monolingual speakers, were given a direct recall, one-response dichotic test. The stimuli were composed of paired English and Spanish stop consonant-vowel syllables varied only by the length of the VOT for the initial consonant. Stimuli consisted of cognate pairs with presentations of one syllable in each language. The presentations were also counterbalanced for an equal number of presentations to each ear. Results indicated that subjects, individually and as a group, demonstrated a no ear advantage (NEA) significantly more often than a right or left ear advantage. This NEA was further confirmed by the fact that subjects identified significantly more English than Spanish syllables independent of the ear of presentation. These results showed that language familiarity, even at the phonological level, served as a more important variable than usual ear dominance patterns in the identification process employed during this dichotic test. The reaction time for right ear responses was not significantly different from the reaction time for left ear responses. Reasons for this lack of difference in reaction times were discussed. Future research uses for this dichotic test, especially with English/Spanish bilinguals, were also discussed.

Year of Submission

1985

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Communicative Disorders

First Advisor

Carlin Hageman

Second Advisor

Bruce Plakke

Third Advisor

Jack Yates

Comments

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Date Original

1985

Object Description

1 PDF file (60 leaves)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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