| 1. |
- Leminen, Alina, et al.
(author)
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Neural dynamics of inflectional and derivational morphology processing in the human brain
- 2013
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In: Cortex. - : Elsevier BV. - 1973-8102 .- 0010-9452. ; 49:10, s. 2758-2771
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We investigated neural distinctions between inflectional and derivational morphology and their interaction with lexical frequency using the mismatch negativity (MMN), an established neurophysiological index of experience-dependent linguistic memory traces and automatic syntactic processing. We presented our electroencephalography (EEG) study participants with derived and inflected words of variable lexical frequencies against their monomorphemic base forms in a passive oddball paradigm, along with acoustically matched pseudowords. Sensor space and distributed source modelling results showed that at 100-150 msec after the suffix onset, derived words elicited larger responses than inflected words. Furthermore, real derived words showed advantage over pseudo-derivations and frequent derivations elicited larger activation than less frequent ones. This pattern of results is fully in line with previous research that explained lexical MMN enhancement by an activation of strongly connected word-specific long-term memory circuits, and thus suggests stronger lexicalisation for frequently used complex words. At the same time, a strikingly different pattern was found for inflectional forms: higher response amplitude for pseudo-inflections than for real inflected words, with no clear frequency effects. This is fully in line with previous MMN results on combinatorial processing of (morpho)syntactic stimuli: higher response to ungrammatical morpheme strings than grammatical ones, which does not depend on the string's surface frequency. This pattern suggests that, for inflectional forms, combinatorial processing route dominates over whole-form storage and access. In sum, our results suggest that derivations are more likely to form unitary representations than inflections which are likely to be processed combinatorially, and imply at least partially distinct brain mechanisms for the processing and representation of these two types of morphology. These dynamic mechanisms, underpinned by perisylvian networks, are activated rapidly, at 100-150 msec after the information arrives at the input, and in a largely automatic fashion, possibly providing neural basis for the first-pass morphological processing of spoken words. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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| 2. |
- Rämä, Pia, et al.
(author)
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Effect of language experience on selective auditory attention : An event-related potential study
- 2018
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In: International Journal of Psychophysiology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0167-8760 .- 1872-7697. ; 127, s. 38-45
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Dual language experience has typically been shown to improve various executive control functions. We investigatedwith event-related brain potentials (ERPs) recorded from early (natively) bilingual speakers andcontrol participants whether it also affects auditory selective attention. We delivered to our participants two tonestreams, one to the left and one to the right ear. Both streams consisted of standard tones and two types ofinfrequent deviant tones which had either an enhanced duration or intensity. The participants were instructed toattend either to the right or left stream and to detect longer-duration deviants in the attended stream. The resultsshowed that the early bilinguals did not outperform the controls in target detection accuracy or speed. However,the late portion of the attention-related ERP modulation (the negative difference, Nd) was larger over the lefthemisphere in the early bilinguals than in the controls, suggesting that the maintenance of selective attention orfurther processing of selectively attended sounds is enhanced in the bilinguals. Moreover, the late reorientingnegativity (RON) in response to intensity-deviant tones was larger in the bilinguals, suggesting more efficientdisengagement of attention from distracting auditory events. Hence, our results demonstrate that brain responsesassociated with certain aspects of auditory attention are enhanced in the bilingual adults, indicating that earlydual language exposure modulates the neuronal responsiveness of auditory modality.
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| 3. |
- Ylinen, Sari, et al.
(author)
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Two Distinct Auditory-Motor Circuits for Monitoring Speech Production as Revealed by Content-Specific Suppression of Auditory Cortex
- 2015
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In: Cerebral Cortex. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1460-2199 .- 1047-3211. ; 25:6, s. 1576-1586
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Speech production, both overt and covert, down-regulates the activation of auditory cortex. This is thought to be due to forward prediction of the sensory consequences of speech, contributing to a feedback control mechanism for speech production. Critically, however, these regulatory effects should be specific to speech content to enable accurate speech monitoring. To determine the extent to which such forward prediction is content-specific, we recorded the brain's neuromagnetic responses to heard multisyllabic pseudowords during covert rehearsal in working memory, contrasted with a control task. The cortical auditory processing of target syllables was significantly suppressed during rehearsal compared with control, but only when they matched the rehearsed items. This critical specificity to speech content enables accurate speech monitoring by forward prediction, as proposed by current models of speech production. The one-to-one phonological motor-to-auditory mappings also appear to serve the maintenance of information in phonological working memory. Further findings of right-hemispheric suppression in the case of whole-item matches and left-hemispheric enhancement for last-syllable mismatches suggest that speech production is monitored by 2 auditory-motor circuits operating on different timescales: Finer grain in the left versus coarser grain in the right hemisphere. Taken together, our findings provide hemisphere-specific evidence of the interface between inner and heard speech.
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