Verbal-manual time sharing in children as a function of task priority

Abstract

Eighty-three normal, right-handed children performed (a) unimanual finger tapping, (b) recitation of a tongue twister, and (c) both tasks concurrently. Tradeoffs in dual-task performance were measured as the priority assigned to each task was manipulated. Irrespective of task priority, speaking interfered to a greater degree with right-hand tapping than with left-hand tapping, but the effect of tapping upon verbal production and speech errors was not lateralized. The asymmetric effect of speech upon tapping, which was seen in 85.5% of the children, cannot be attributed to the disparity between hands in baseline tapping rate. The findings suggest that time-sharing asymmetry reflects cerebral lateralization of speech, but only some of the results would be predicted on the basis of a functional distance principle of cerebral organization.