| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6263798 | Brain Research | 2013 | 7 Pages |
â¢We investigated the effect of language experience on early cortical AEPs.â¢Phoneme sequences linguistically contrastive in Polish but not English were presented.â¢P1-N1-P2 complex and T-complex indexed acoustic feature processing of natural speech.â¢Bilateral posterior temporal T-complex reflected phonological experience.â¢Results suggest serial and parallel neural processing of speech for perception.
The influence of native-language experience on sensory-obligatory auditory-evoked potentials (AEPs) was investigated in native-English and native-Polish listeners. AEPs were recorded to the first word in nonsense word pairs, while participants performed a syllable identification task to the second word in the pairs. Nonsense words contained phoneme sequence onsets (i.e., /pt/, /pÉt/, /st/ and /sÉt/) that occur in the Polish and English languages, with the exception that /pt/ at syllable onset is an illegal phonotactic form in English. P1-N1-P2 waveforms from fronto-central electrode sites were comparable in English and Polish listeners, even though, these same English participants were unable to distinguish the nonsense words having /pt/ and /pÉt/ onsets. The P1-N1-P2 complex indexed the temporal characteristics of the word stimuli in the same manner for both language groups. Taken together, these findings suggest that the fronto-central P1-N1-P2 complex reflects acoustic feature processing of speech and is not significantly influenced by exposure to the phoneme sequences of the native-language. In contrast, the T-complex from bilateral posterior temporal sites was found to index phonological as well as acoustic feature processing to the nonsense word stimuli. An enhanced negativity for the /pt/ cluster relative to its contrast sequence (i.e., /pÉt/) occurred only for the Polish listeners, suggesting that neural networks within non-primary auditory cortex may be involved in early cortical phonological processing.
