Cerebral correlates of hemispheric lateralization during a pitch discrimination task: an ERP study in dichotic situation

Objective: Electrophysiological correlates of perceptual asymmetry for dichotic pitch discrimination were investigated in 12 right-handed volunteers, whose dichotic listening performances attested the classical ‘right ear advantage’ in a verbal discrimination task. Methods: Event related potentials (ERPs), elicited by dichotic and binaural pairs of tones applied in a classical oddball paradigm including right ear targets, left ear targets and binaural targets (5% occurrence each) were recorded from medial and lateral scalp locations. Latencies and baseline to peak amplitudes were measured for P1, N1, P2, N2 and P3 components. Results: ERPs recorded in response to dichotic (compared with binaural) target pairs, exhibited delayed latencies for N2 and P3, correlated with prolonged RTs, probably linked to greater difficulty in identification of the target. They also displayed enhanced N1 and P2 voltages, which may reflect the simultaneous activation of two different populations of neurons in the auditory cortical areas. We observed specific lateralization effects for pitch discrimination with a left ear advantage on latency of early components. Conclusion: Together with amplitude asymmetries in the N2 component, the findings bring strong electrophysiological support to Kimuraʹs structural model for dichotic perceptions with a right hemisphere prevalence in a pitch discrimination task.