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Language experience and the organization of brain activity to phonetically similar words: ERP evidence from 14- and 20-montholds
- Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
, 2004
"... & The ability to discriminate phonetically similar speech sounds is evident quite early in development. However, inexperienced word learners do not always use this informa-tion in processing word meanings [Stager & Werker (1997). Nature, 388, 381–382]. The present study used event-related po ..."
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Cited by 26 (4 self)
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& The ability to discriminate phonetically similar speech sounds is evident quite early in development. However, inexperienced word learners do not always use this informa-tion in processing word meanings [Stager & Werker (1997). Nature, 388, 381–382]. The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine developmental changes from 14 to 20 months in brain activity important in processing phonetic detail in the context of meaningful words. ERPs were compared to three types of words: words whose meanings were known by the child (e.g., ‘‘bear’’), nonsense words that differed by an initial phoneme (e.g., ‘‘gare’’), and nonsense words that differed from the known words by more than one phoneme (e.g., ‘‘kobe’’). These results supported the behavio-ral findings suggesting that inexperienced word learners do not use information about phonetic detail when processing word meanings. For the 14-month-olds, ERPs to known words (e.g., ‘‘bear’’) differed from ERPs to phonetically dissimilar nonsense words (e.g., ‘‘kobe’’), but did not differ from ERPs to phonetically similar nonsense words (e.g., ‘‘gare’’), suggesting that known words and similar mispronunciations were processed as the same word. In contrast, for experienced word learners (i.e., 20-month-olds), ERPs to known words (e.g., ‘‘bear’’) differed from those to both types of nonsense words (‘‘gare’ ’ and ‘‘kobe’’). Changes in the lateral distribution of ERP differences to known and unknown (nonce) words between 14 and 20 months replicated previous findings. The findings suggested that vocabulary development is an impor-tant factor in the organization of neural systems linked to processing phonetic detail within the context of word comprehension. &
The "Perceptual Wedge Hypothesis" as the basis for bilingual babies phonetic processing advantage: New insights from fNIRS brain imaging
- Brain and Language
, 2012
"... a b s t r a c t In a neuroimaging study focusing on young bilinguals, we explored the brains of bilingual and monolingual babies across two age groups (younger 4-6 months, older 10-12 months), using fNIRS in a new event-related design, as babies processed linguistic phonetic (Native English, Non-Na ..."
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Cited by 5 (1 self)
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a b s t r a c t In a neuroimaging study focusing on young bilinguals, we explored the brains of bilingual and monolingual babies across two age groups (younger 4-6 months, older 10-12 months), using fNIRS in a new event-related design, as babies processed linguistic phonetic (Native English, Non-Native Hindi) and nonlinguistic Tone stimuli. We found that phonetic processing in bilingual and monolingual babies is accomplished with the same language-specific brain areas classically observed in adults, including the left superior temporal gyrus (associated with phonetic processing) and the left inferior frontal cortex (associated with the search and retrieval of information about meanings, and syntactic and phonological patterning), with intriguing developmental timing differences: left superior temporal gyrus activation was observed early and remained stably active over time, while left inferior frontal cortex showed greater increase in neural activation in older babies notably at the precise age when babies' enter the universal first-word milestone, thus revealing a first-time focal brain correlate that may mediate a universal behavioral milestone in early human language acquisition. A difference was observed in the older bilingual babies' resilient neural and behavioral sensitivity to Non-Native phonetic contrasts at a time when monolingual babies can no longer make such discriminations. We advance the ''Perceptual Wedge Hypothesis'' as one possible explanation for how exposure to greater than one language may alter neural and language processing in ways that we suggest are advantageous to language users. The brains of bilinguals and multilinguals may provide the most powerful window into the full neural ''extent and variability'' that our human species' language processing brain areas could potentially achieve.
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"... Special section: Language development in multilingual environments ..."
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Acquisition of syllabic prominence in German speaking children
"... An investigation of the acoustic correlates of word stress in infant polysyllabic vocalization was carried out on the basis of data from 6 German-learning infants between 7 and 36 months of age in order to describe the development of word stress in German. The data were analyzed with respect to dura ..."
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An investigation of the acoustic correlates of word stress in infant polysyllabic vocalization was carried out on the basis of data from 6 German-learning infants between 7 and 36 months of age in order to describe the development of word stress in German. The data were analyzed with respect to duration, intensity, fundamental frequency (f0), as well as vowel quality parameters describing the time and degree of opening of the glottis, the slope of the spectrum and glottal leakage. With beginning of babbling children are able to produce different stress patterns. However, the implementation and usage of the parameters contributing to marking word stress appear to be inconsistent. The children used all measured acoustic parameters for marking word stress but the usage of the parameters depended on age and on the individual child. The most important cue to mark different stress patterns is to learn to reduce the acoustic parameters for the production of unstressed vowels.
Word recognition
, 2010
"... available at www.sciencedirect.com www.elsevier.com/locate/brainres ..."
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