Development of language-specific phoneme representations in the infant brain

Cheour, Marie; Čėponiené, Rita; Lehtokoski, Anne; Luuk, Aavo; Allïk, Jüri; Alho, Kimmo; Näätänen, Risto

doi:10.1038/1561

Cited by 580 publications

(347 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…1B, shaded regions). These selections captured the peak of the response in the group average data and conformed to the classic time ranges for MMR documented in the infant literature (25,29,30). The MMRs in the target windows were then averaged for each participant.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Musical intervention enhances infants’ neural processing of temporal structure in music and speech

Zhao

Kuhl

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

129

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Individuals with music training in early childhood show enhanced processing of musical sounds, an effect that generalizes to speech processing. However, the conclusions drawn from previous studies are limited due to the possible confounds of predisposition and other factors affecting musicians and nonmusicians. We used a randomized design to test the effects of a laboratory-controlled music intervention on young infants' neural processing of music and speech. Nine-month-old infants were randomly assigned to music (intervention) or play (control) activities for 12 sessions. The intervention targeted temporal structure learning using triple meter in music (e.g., waltz), which is difficult for infants, and it incorporated key characteristics of typical infant music classes to maximize learning (e.g., multimodal, social, and repetitive experiences). Controls had similar multimodal, social, repetitive play, but without music. Upon completion, infants' neural processing of temporal structure was tested in both music (tones in triple meter) and speech (foreign syllable structure). Infants' neural processing was quantified by the mismatch response (MMR) measured with a traditional oddball paradigm using magnetoencephalography (MEG). The intervention group exhibited significantly larger MMRs in response to music temporal structure violations in both auditory and prefrontal cortical regions. Identical results were obtained for temporal structure changes in speech. The intervention thus enhanced temporal structure processing not only in music, but also in speech, at 9 mo of age. We argue that the intervention enhanced infants' ability to extract temporal structure information and to predict future events in time, a skill affecting both music and speech processing.M usic training in early childhood has received increased attention as a model for the study of functional neural plasticity (1). Previous studies investigating musically trained adults and children have demonstrated their enhanced processing of musical pitch and meter in comparison with nontrained groups (2-6). Moreover, prior evidence also suggests generalization effects from early musical training to speech processing. For example, musically trained adults and children can better process pitch information in lexical tones and temporal information in syllable structure, compared with nonmusicians (7-10). These cross-domain effects from early music training to speech perception raise theoretically interesting and important questions about different levels of processing (e.g., lower level acoustic processing vs. higher level cognitive skills) affected by early experience (11).However, there are several methodological issues preventing strong causal inferences about the effects of early music training in studies comparing musicians with nonmusicians. First, predispositions (e.g., higher auditory acuity) may lead individuals to self-select early music training, thus contributing to the observed differences between musicians and nonmusicians. Second, there exists gre...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Musical intervention enhances infants’ neural processing of temporal structure in music and speech

Zhao

Kuhl

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

129

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“…Although the etiology of dyslexia is not well understood, the current view supports an impairment of phonological processing (Norton, Beach, & Gabrieli, 2014), as well as sensory deficits (e.g., Kubova et al, 2015;Schulte-K€ orne & Bruder, 2010;Stefanics, Fosker, et al, 2011). Auditory MMN has been extensively used to investigate the development of the auditory and speech systems (Cheour et al, 1998 …”

Section: Developmental Disordersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visual mismatch negativity (vMMN): A review and meta-analysis of studies in psychiatric and neurological disorders

Kremláček

Kreegipuu

Tales

et al. 2016

Cortex

Self Cite

108

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The visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) response is an event-related potential (ERP) component, which is automatically elicited by events that violate predictions based on prior events. VMMN experiments use visual stimulus repetition to induce predictions, and vMMN is obtained by subtracting the response to rare unpredicted stimuli from those to frequent stimuli. One increasingly popular interpretation of the mismatch response postulates that vMMN, similar to its auditory counterpart (aMMN), represents a prediction error response generated by cortical mechanisms forming probabilistic representations of sensory signals. Here we discuss the physiological and theoretical basis of vMMN and review thirty-three studies from the emerging field of its clinical applications, presenting a meta-analysis of findings in schizophrenia, mood disorders, substance abuse, neurodegenerative disorders, developmental disorders, deafness, panic disorder and hypertension. Furthermore, we include reports on aging and maturation as they bear upon many clinically relevant conditions. Surveying the literature we found that vMMN is altered in several clinical populations which is in line with aMMN findings. An important potential advantage of vMMN however is that it allows the investigation of deficits in predictive processing in cognitive domains which rely primarily on visual information; a principal sensory modality and thus of vital importance in environmental information processing and response, and a modality which arguably may be more sensitive to some pathological changes. However, due to the relative infancy of research in vMMN compared to aMMN in clinical populations its potential for clinical application is not yet fully appreciated. The aim of this review and meta-analysis therefore is to present, in a detailed systematic manner, the findings from clinically-based vMMN studies, to discuss their potential impact and application, to raise awareness of this measure and to improve our understanding of disease upon fundamental aspects of visual information processing. Furthermore, we include reports on aging and maturation as they bear upon many clinically relevant conditions. Surveying the literature we found that vMMN is altered in several 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 clinical populations which is in line with aMMN findings. An important potential advantage of vMMN however is that it allows the investigation of deficits in predictive processing in cognitive domains which rely primarily on visual information; a principal sensor...

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“…Interestingly, the MMN appears to be sensitive to language-specific phoneme representations (Mitterer and Blomert, 2003;Näätänen, 2001;Näätänen et al, 1997;Phillips et al, 2000;Winkler et al, 1999) and lexical representations of words (Jacobsen et al, 2004a;Pulvermüller et al, 2001). In particular, both in adults (DehaeneLambertz, 1997;Näätänen et al, 1997) and in infants (Cheour et al, 1998;Dehaene-Lambertz and Baillet, 1998), phonemes that are prototypical in the native language elicit larger MMN responses as compared to phonemes that do not occur in that language but are still discriminable. Moreover, the processing of phoneme contrasts has been shown to elicit an MMN when the phoneme contrast occurs in the native language of the listener but not in case of a non-native contrast that cannot be discriminated (Dehaene-Lambertz et al, 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Auditory cortical tuning to statistical regularities in phonology

Bonte

Mitterer

Zellagui

et al. 2005

Clinical Neurophysiology

123

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Objective: Ample behavioral evidence suggests that distributional properties of the language environment influence the processing of speech. Yet, how these characteristics are reflected in neural processes remains largely unknown. The present ERP study investigates neurophysiological correlates of phonotactic probability: the distributional frequency of phoneme combinations. Methods: We employed an ERP measure indicative of experience-dependent auditory memory traces, the mismatch negativity (MMN). We presented pairs of non-words that differed by the degree of phonotactic probability in a modified passive oddball design that minimizes the contribution of acoustic processes. Results: In Experiment 1 the non-word with high phonotactic probability (notsel) elicited a significantly enhanced MMN as compared to the non-word with low phonotactic probability (notkel). In Experiment 2 this finding was replicated with a non-word pair with a smaller acoustic difference (notsel-notfel). An MMN enhancement was not observed in a third acoustic control experiment with stimuli having comparable phonotactic probability (so-fo). Conclusions: Our data suggest that auditory cortical responses to phoneme clusters are modulated by statistical regularities of phoneme combinations. Significance: This study indicates that the language environment is relevant in shaping the neural processing of speech. Furthermore, it provides a potentially useful design for investigating implicit phonological processing in children with anomalous language functions like dyslexia.

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Development of language-specific phoneme representations in the infant brain

Cited by 580 publications

References 13 publications

Musical intervention enhances infants’ neural processing of temporal structure in music and speech

Musical intervention enhances infants’ neural processing of temporal structure in music and speech

Visual mismatch negativity (vMMN): A review and meta-analysis of studies in psychiatric and neurological disorders

Auditory cortical tuning to statistical regularities in phonology

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