Cherbuin Nicolas, Brinkman Cobie
School of Psychology, Building 39, Australian National University, Canberr, Australia.
Laterality. 2007 May;12(3):239-61. doi: 10.1080/13576500701218345.
The measure of hemispheric activation in cognitive and clinical studies remains out of reach of many scientists due to cost, analysis complexity, and practical consideration of the techniques available such as fMRI, EEG, or EMG. The present study was conducted to determine whether infrared functional tympanic membrane thermometry (fTMT) is a measure of lateralised activation sensitive enough to be used in typical cognitive and clinical experiments. A total of 24 participants had their tympanic membrane temperature measured while performing a letter-matching task. Activation in the two hemispheres was manipulated by changing the proportion of matches occurring in the left and right visual fields and by varying the task complexity. Changes in fTMT due to the greater proportion of matches presented in one visual field and due to the modulation in task complexity were detected. These findings suggest that fTMT is a measure of broad lateralised cerebral activation sensitive enough for use in typical psychological studies.
由于成本、分析复杂性以及诸如功能磁共振成像（fMRI）、脑电图（EEG）或肌电图（EMG）等现有技术的实际考量，许多科学家仍无法在认知和临床研究中测量半球激活情况。本研究旨在确定红外功能性鼓膜测温法（fTMT）是否是一种足够敏感的侧化激活测量方法，可用于典型的认知和临床实验。共有24名参与者在执行字母匹配任务时测量了他们的鼓膜温度。通过改变左右视野中匹配出现的比例以及改变任务复杂性来操纵两个半球的激活。检测到由于一个视野中呈现的匹配比例较大以及任务复杂性的调节而导致的fTMT变化。这些发现表明，fTMT是一种足够敏感的广泛侧化脑激活测量方法，可用于典型的心理学研究。
