摘要

The manipulation of voice onset time (VOT) during dichotic listening has provided novel insights regarding brain function. To date, the most common design is the utilisation of four VOT conditions: shot-long pairs (SL), where a CV syllable with a short VOT is presented to the left ear and a CV syllable with a long VOT is presented to the right ear as well as long-short (LS), short-short (SS) and long-long (LL) pairs. Rimol, Eichele, and Hugdahl (2006) first reported that in healthy adults SL pairs elicit the largest REA while, in fact, LS pairs elicit a significant left ear advantage (LEA). This VOT effect was replicated by Sandmann et al. (2007). A study of children aged 5-8 years of age has shown a developmental trajectory whereby long VOTs gradually start to dominate over short VOTs when LS pairs are being presented under dichotic conditions (Westerhausen, Helland, Ofte, & Hugdahl, 2010). Two studies have investigated attentional modulation of the VOT effect in children and adults. The converging evidence from these studies shows that at around 9 years of age children lack the adult-like cognitive flexibility required to exert top-down control over stimulus-driven bottom-up processes (Andersson, Llera, Rimol, & H Jgdahl, 2008; Arciuli, Rankine, & Monaghan, 2010). Arciuli et al. further demonstrated that this kind of cognitive flexibility is a predictor of proficiency with complex tasks such as reading. A review of each of these studies, the possible mechanisms underlying the VOT effect and directions for future research are discussed.

  • 出版日期2011-7