Neural Mechanisms Underlying Hemispheric Asymmetry for Social Communication and Auditory Perception

A special issue of Symmetry (ISSN 2073-8994). This special issue belongs to the section "Life Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 September 2024 | Viewed by 312

Special Issue Editor

McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 43 Vassar St, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Interests: comparative social communication; echolocation; auditory processing; speech; language; music; neural coding; hemispheric specialization; autism spectrum disorder; gulf War Illness; Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; cerebellum; neuroanatomy

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

A defining characteristic of the human brain is a left-hemispheric asymmetry for processing speech and language. This classic result is complicated by a multitude of subsequent findings. First, certain aspects of speech, such as prosodic variation and voice identity, are processed in the right hemisphere rather than the left. Second, left-hemispheric asymmetry is commonly reported for non-acoustical forms of language (e.g., reading and sign language). Third, the existence of comparable hemispheric asymmetries for social communication in other species remains controversial. Reconciling these discrepancies necessitates a robust debate about the neural substrates underlying, along with the ethological pressures driving, hemispheric specialization for social communication and general auditory perception.

In this Special Issue, we invite clinical, basic research, and comparative papers exploring and discussing neural substrates of hemispheric asymmetry for speech, music, and other sounds along with non-acoustical aspects of language. Of particular interest is contrasting, debating, and validating various “closed system” (e.g., speech module) and “domain general” (e.g., spectral vs. temporal, asymmetric sampling in time, double filtering by frequency) hypotheses. Studies of visual and motor asymmetries should be directly relatable to topics of either speech, language, or social communication (e.g., sign language), likewise with studies of music and/or pitch.

Dr. Stuart D. Washington
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • hemispheric asymmetry
  • speech
  • language
  • temporal
  • spectral
  • closed-system
  • domain-general
  • speech module
  • asymmetric sampling in time

Published Papers

This special issue is now open for submission.
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