Search results for "Speech lateralization"

Detrimental noise effects on brain's speech functions.

2009

Background noise has become part of our everyday life in modern societies. Its presence affects both the ability to concentrate and communicate. Some individuals, like children, the elderly, and non-native speakers have pronounced problems in noisy environments. Here we review evidence suggesting that background noise has both transient and Sustained detrimental effects on central speech processing. Studies on the effects of noise on neural processes have demonstrated hemispheric reorganization in speech processing in adult individuals during background noise. During noise, the well-known left hemisphere dominance in speech discrimination became right hemisphere preponderant. Furthermore, l…