Converging evidence for left hemisphere language lateralization in bilinguals

Abstract

A previous study [1] demonstrated that when subject and experimental variables are controlled, similar levels of left hemisphere language lateralization are obtained in bilinguals and monolinguals. The present study used the same group of bilinguals (adult, late acquirers of their second language) in an auditory lateralization task. A similar degree of left hemisphere asymmetry was again obtained for the bilinguals' two languages and for the monolinguals. Furthermore, the individual performances of the bilinguals--within the present task and across visual and auditory tasks--paralleled those of monolinguals. Thus, converging evidence is provided for equal levels of left hemisphere language dominance in bilinguals and monolinguals.