St. John's University, 8000 Utopia Parkway, Queens, NY, 11439, USA.
BESA, GmbH, Gräfelfing, 82166, Germany.
Neuropsychologia. 2023 Oct 10;189:108659. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2023.108659. Epub 2023 Aug 12.
The phonotactic patterns of one's native language are established within cortical network processing during development. Sensory processing of native language phonotactic patterns established in memory may be modulated by top-down signals within the alpha and beta frequency bands. To explore sensory processing of phonotactic patterns in the alpha and beta frequency bands, electroencephalograms (EEGs) were recorded from native Polish and native English-speaking adults as they listened to spoken nonwords within same and different nonword pairs. The nonwords contained three phonological sequence onsets that occur in the Polish and English languages (/pət/, /st/, /sət/) and one onset sequence /pt/, which occurs in Polish but not in English onsets. Source localization modeling was used to transform 64-channel EEGs into brain source-level channels. Spectral power values in the low frequencies (2-29 Hz) were analyzed in response to the first nonword in nonword pairs within the context of counterbalanced listening-task conditions, which were presented on separate testing days. For the with-task listening condition, participants performed a behavioral task to the second nonword in the pairs. For the without-task condition participants were only instructed to listen to the stimuli. Thus, in the with-task condition, the first nonword served as a cue for the second nonword, the target stimulus. The results revealed decreased spectral power in the beta frequency band for the with-task condition compared to the without-task condition in response to native language phonotactic patterns. In contrast, the task-related suppression effects in response to the non-native phonotactic pattern /pt/ for the English listeners extended into the alpha frequency band. These effects were localized to source channels in left auditory cortex, the left anterior temporal cortex and the occipital pole. This exploratory study revealed a pattern of results that, if replicated, suggests that native language speech perception is supported by modulations in the alpha and beta frequency bands.
母语的音位模式是在发展过程中通过皮质网络处理建立的。母语音位模式的感觉处理可能会受到来自 alpha 和 beta 频段的自上而下信号的调制。为了探索 alpha 和 beta 频段中音位模式的感觉处理，我们记录了母语为波兰语和英语的成年人在听相同和不同非词对中的非词时的脑电图 (EEG)。这些非词包含三种在波兰语和英语中出现的语音序列起点 (/pət/, /st/, /sət/) 和一种仅在波兰语中出现的起点序列 /pt/。使用源定位建模将 64 通道 EEG 转换为大脑源水平通道。在平衡听力任务条件下，分析低频（2-29 Hz）的频谱功率值，该条件在单独的测试日中呈现非词对中的第一个非词。对于有任务的听力条件，参与者在对第二个非词进行行为任务。对于无任务条件，参与者仅被指示听刺激。因此，在有任务的条件下，第一个非词作为第二个非词的提示，即目标刺激。结果表明，与无任务条件相比，母语音位模式的反应中，beta 频段的频谱功率降低。相比之下，对于英语听众，对非母语音位模式 /pt/ 的任务相关抑制效应扩展到 alpha 频段。这些效应定位于左听觉皮层、左前颞叶皮层和枕极的源通道。这项探索性研究揭示了一种结果模式，如果得到复制，表明母语语音感知受到 alpha 和 beta 频段调制的支持。
