Mercure, Evelyne; Ashwin, Emma; Dick, Frederic; Halit, Hanife; Auyeung, Bonnie; Baron-Cohen, Simon and Johnson, Mark H.. 2009. IQ, fetal testosterone and individual variability in children's functional lateralization. Neuropsychologia, 47(12), pp. 2537-2543. ISSN 0028-3932 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

Previous event-related potential (ERP) studies have revealed that faces and words show a robust difference in the lateralization of their N170. The present study investigated the development of this differential lateralization in school-age boys. We assessed the potential role of fetal testosterone (FT) level as a factor biasing the prenatal development of lateralization, and the role of reading skill and Verbal IQ as factors predicting left lateralization for words in childhood. The adult pattern of differential N170 lateralization for faces and words was not present in a group of 26 school-age boys. This suggests that N170 lateralization only appears with years of experience with these stimulus categories or with late childhood maturation. FT level measured by amniocentesis did not account for a significant part of the individual variability in lateralization. Verbal IQ correlated with the degree of left lateralization of the N170 to words, but this effect was not specific to language abilities and language lateralization. A strong correlation was observed between the degree of left lateralization for words and the degree of left lateralization for faces, and both lateralization scores correlated with Verbal and Performance IQ. Possible explanations for these results are discussed along with ERP correlates of words and faces in school-age boys.

Item Type:	Article
Identification Number (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2009.04.027
Additional Information:	This work was supported by the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation and the MRC to SBC, MRC grant PG97 15587 to MJ and G0400341 to FD, as well as by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Birkbeck, University of London to EM.
Keywords:	Event-related potentials, N170, Reading, Words, Faces, Development
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Psychology
Dates:	Date Event 28 April 2009 Accepted 5 May 2009 Published Online October 2009 Published
Item ID:	32842
Date Deposited:	20 Dec 2022 10:58
Last Modified:	20 Dec 2022 10:58
Peer Reviewed:	Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/32842

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