Complex linguistic rules modulate early auditory brain responses

• Published in: Brain and language Vol. 149; pp. 55 - 65
• Main Authors: Sun, Yue, Giavazzi, Maria, Adda-Decker, Martine, Barbosa, Leonardo S., Kouider, Sid, Bachoud-Lévi, Anne-Catherine, Jacquemot, Charlotte, Peperkamp, Sharon
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier Inc 01.10.2015; Elsevier
• Subjects: Acoustic Stimulation; Assimilation; Brain - physiology; Cognitive science; Electroencephalography; England; Female; France; Humans; Linguistics; Male; Mismatch negativity; Phonetics; Phonological rules; Psychology; Speech perception; Speech Perception - physiology; Voice - physiology; Young Adult; England; France; Assimilation; Electroencephalography; Mismatch negativity; Phonological rules; Speech perception; Linguistic rules
• ISSN: 0093-934X; 1090-2155
• DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2015.06.009

•Low level linguistic rules impact on the perception of speech sounds.•We investigate when complex rules impact on sound categorization with EEG.•EEG shows that compensation for complex rule modulates an early auditory response.•Speech categorization is thus also sensitive to complex linguistic native rules. During speech perception, listeners compensate for phonological rules of their language. For instance, English place assimilation causes green boat to be typically pronounced as greem boat; English listeners, however, perceptually compensate for this rule and retrieve the intended sound (n). Previous research using EEG has focused on rules with clear phonetic underpinnings, showing that perceptual compensation occurs at an early stage of speech perception. We tested whether this early mechanism also accounts for the compensation for more complex rules. We examined compensation for French voicing assimilation, a rule with abstract phonological restrictions on the contexts in which it applies. Our results reveal that perceptual compensation for this rule by French listeners modulates an early ERP component. This is evidence that early stages of speech sound categorization are sensitive to complex phonological rules of the native language.