Gender differences in functional hemispheric asymmetry during processing of vowels as reflected by the human brain magnetic response

A number of findings indicate gender differences in language-related functi onal hemispheric brain asymmetry. To test if such gender-specific lateralit y is already present at the level of vowel-processing, the auditory evoked magnetic field was recorded in healthy right-handed male and female partici pants in response to the German synthetic vowels [a], [e] and [i]. Female p articipants exhibited stronger N100m responses than male participants over the left hemisphere. This observation was highly reliable across repeated e xperimental sessions. The present lateralization shows that previous findin gs suggesting a stronger left-hemispheric dominance for verbal material in males than in females can not be generalized to basic speech elements. Furt hermore, the present results support the importance of controlling for gend er ratio in studies of phonetic processing. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Irela nd Ltd. All rights reserved.