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Asymmetry of Tactile Perception and Interhemispheric Interactions in Stutterers

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Abstract

The effect of inverse masking on the skin of the left and right hands and of bimanual reverse masking during coordinated work of both hands in stutterers was studied to detect the changes in cerebral asymmetry related to stuttering. The study showed that (1) asymmetry of tactile perception is absent in stutterers in the conditions of masking; it is supposed that when stuttering begins in early childhood, the formation of the hemispheric specialization in performing both sensory (all modalities) and speech functions is interrupted; (2) stuttering right-handers demonstrate a strongly “levotropic nature” of the interhemispheric interactions under conditions of bimanual masking, which testifies to a more considerable “retardation” of the perception of a test stimulus in the stutterers' left hemisphere under the influence of the masking stimulus in the right hemisphere than in right-handers with normal speech. It is assumed on this basis that stuttering begins because of the combination of symmetry and asymmetry in the interhemispheric relations. There is a hypothetical model that supposes that the phenomenon of stuttering is caused by two fundamental factors, namely, bilateral symmetry (existence of two identical speech centers in the right and left hemispheres) and a specific “levotropic” asymmetry of the interhemispheric relations, i.e., a more manifest influence of the right hemisphere on the left hemisphere in stutterers. This conditions the emergence of two identical speech impulses that appear with long intervals between them, which cause a dissonance in the functioning of the speech-forming apparatus.

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  1. Abovyan Armenian State Pedagogical Institute, Yerevan, Armenia

    D. S. Matoyan

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Matoyan, D.S. Asymmetry of Tactile Perception and Interhemispheric Interactions in Stutterers. Human Physiology 27, 184–189 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011075216136

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