Tactile gap detection and language lateralization

Recent work suggests that hemispheric language lateralisation might be rela ted to the fine-grained temporal discriminations that are required for ling uistic processing (Nicholls, 1996). Studies concerning tactile processing h ave also shown a significant left-hemisphere (L-H) advantage for tactile ga p detection (Nicholls & Whelan, 1997). We hypothesized that language and ta ctile processing are both preferentially processed by the left hemisphere b ecause ii is specialized for tasks requiring fine-grained temporal resoluti on. Thirty-two participants (16 right and 16 left handers) were tested for both linguistic processing (using the Fused Dichotic Words Test (FDWT)) and tactile gap detection. Both right and left handers showed a significant L- H advantage for both language processing and tactile gap detection. The pre sent study supports recent claims that language lateralization is attributa ble to the left hemisphere's better suitability to process tasks that requi re fine-grained temporal resolution. (C) 2000 Academic Press.