ORCID Profile
0000-0002-6492-3766
Current Organisations
Lund University
,
MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development
,
Western Sydney University
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Publisher: ISCA
Date: 31-05-2016
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Date: 07-06-2016
Abstract: Swedish native speakers (NSs) unconsciously use tones realized on word stems to predict upcoming suffixes during speech comprehension. The present response time study investigated whether relatively proficient second language (L2) learners of Swedish have acquired the underlying association between tones and suffixes without explicit instruction, internalizing a feature that is specific to their L2. Learners listened to sentences in which the tone on the verb stem either validly or invalidly cued the following present or past tense inflection. Invalidly cued suffixes led to increased decision latencies in a verb tense identification task, suggesting that learners pre-activated suffixes associated with stem tones in a manner similar to NSs. Thus, L2 learners seemed to have acquired the tone-suffix connections through implicit mechanisms. Correctly cued suffixes were associated with a smaller processing advantage in the L2 group relative to NSs performing the same task nevertheless, results suggest a tendency for increasingly native-like tone processing with cumulative language experience. The way suffix type affected response times also indicates exposure-related effects.
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 18-05-2023
DOI: 10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0285286
Abstract: We investigated early electrophysiological responses to spoken English words embedded in neutral sentence frames, using a lexical decision paradigm. As words unfold in time, similar-sounding lexical items compete for recognition within 200 milliseconds after word onset. A small number of studies have previously investigated event-related potentials in this time window in English and French, with results differing in direction of effects as well as component scalp distribution. Investigations of spoken-word recognition in Swedish have reported an early left-frontally distributed event-related potential that increases in litude as a function of the probability of a successful lexical match as the word unfolds. Results from the present study indicate that the same process may occur in English: we propose that increased certainty of a ‘word’ response in a lexical decision task is reflected in the litude of an early left-anterior brain potential beginning around 150 milliseconds after word onset. This in turn is proposed to be connected to the probabilistically driven activation of possible upcoming word forms.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2017
DOI: 10.1016/J.NEULET.2017.08.030
Abstract: Occurring at rates up to 6-7 syllables per second, speech perception and understanding involves rapid identification of speech sounds and pre-activation of morphemes and words. Using event-related potentials (ERPs) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated the time-course and neural sources of pre-activation of word endings as participants heard the beginning of unfolding words. ERPs showed a pre-activation negativity (PrAN) for word beginnings (first two segmental phonemes) with few possible completions. PrAN increased gradually as the number of possible completions of word onsets decreased and the lexical frequency of the completions increased. The early brain potential effect for few possible word completions was associated with a blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) contrast increase in Broca's area (pars opercularis of the left inferior frontal gyrus) and angular gyrus of the left parietal lobe. We suggest early involvement of the left prefrontal cortex in inhibiting irrelevant left parietal activation during lexical selection. The results further our understanding of the importance of Broca's area in rapid online pre-activation of words.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2013
DOI: 10.1016/J.BRAINRES.2013.05.013
Abstract: High and low tones on Swedish word stems are associated with different classes of suffixes. We tested the electrophysiological effects of high and low stem tones as well as tonally cued and uncued suffixes. Two different tasks were used involving either choosing the suffix-dependent meaning of the words, or pressing a button when the word ended. To determine whether effects were in fact due to association of tones with lexical material, delexicalized stimuli were also used. High tones in lexical items produced an increase in the P2 component in both tasks, interpreted as showing passive anticipatory attention allocated to the associated upcoming suffix. This effect was absent for delexicalized forms, where instead an N1 increase was found for high tones, indicating that the high pitch was unexpected in the absence of lexical material, and did not lead to anticipatory attention. A P600 effect was found for uncued high-associated suffixes in the semantic task, which was also where the largest increase was found in reaction times. This suggests that the tonal cues were most important when participants were required to process the meaning of the words.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2017
DOI: 10.1016/J.BANDL.2017.08.004
Abstract: Using a concurrent ERP/fMRI paradigm, we investigated how listeners take advantage of morphologically relevant tonal information at the beginning of words to predict and pre-activate likely word endings. More predictive, low tone word stems gave rise to a 'pre-activation negativity' (PrAN) in the ERPs, a brain potential which has previously been found to increase along with the degree of predictive certainty as regards how a word is going to end. It is suggested that more predictive, low tone stems lead to rapid access to word endings with processing subserved by the left primary auditory cortex as well as the supramarginal gyrus, while high tone stems - which are less predictive - decrease predictive certainty, leading to increased competition between activated word endings, which needs to be resolved by the left inferior frontal gyrus.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2018
DOI: 10.1016/J.BRAINRES.2018.06.004
Abstract: Listeners are constantly trying to predict what the speaker will say next. We concurrently measured the electrophysiological and haemodynamic correlates of syntactic pre-activation, investigating when and where the brain processes speech melody cues to upcoming word order structure. Pre-activation of syntactic structure was reflected in a left-lateralised pre-activation negativity (PrAN), which was subserved by Broca's area in the left inferior frontal gyrus, as well as the contiguous left anterior insula.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2015
DOI: 10.1016/J.BANDL.2015.07.009
Abstract: Previous studies distinguish between right hemisphere-dominant processing of prosodic/tonal information and left-hemispheric modulation of grammatical information as well as lexical tones. Swedish word accents offer a prime testing ground to better understand this ision. Although similar to lexical tones, word accents are determined by words' morphosyntactic structure, which enables listeners to use the tone at the beginning of a word to predict its grammatical ending. We recorded electrophysiological and hemodynamic brain responses to words where stem tones matched or mismatched inflectional suffixes. Tones produced brain potential effects after 136 ms, correlating with subject variability in average BOLD in left primary auditory cortex, superior temporal gyrus, and inferior frontal gyrus. Invalidly cued suffixes activated the left inferior parietal lobe, arguably reflecting increased processing cost of their meaning. Thus, interaction of word accent tones with grammatical morphology yielded a rapid neural response correlating in subject variability with activations in predominantly left-hemispheric brain areas.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 30-05-2016
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2018
DOI: 10.1016/J.BANDL.2017.12.001
Abstract: The present study investigated the relationship between linguistic tone processing and cortical thickness of bilateral planum temporale (PT) and pars opercularis of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFGpo). Swedish tones on word stems function as cues to upcoming endings. Correlating structural brain imaging data with participants' response time patterns for suffixes, we found that thicker cortex in the left PT was associated with greater reliance on tones to anticipate upcoming inflections on real words. On inflected pseudoword stems, however, the cortical thickness of left IFGpo was associated with tone-suffix processing. Thus cortical thickness of the left PT might play a role in processing tones as part of stored representations for familiar speech segments, most likely when inflected forms are accessed as whole words. In the absence of stored representations, listeners might need to rely on morphosyntactic rules specifying tone-suffix associations, potentially facilitated by greater cortical thickness of left IFGpo.
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 10-10-2016
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Date: 08-06-2012
DOI: 10.1075/ML.7.1.04SOE
Abstract: The present response time study investigated the influence Central Swedish word accents have on the interpretation of inflectional morphology. Effects of stem tone match/mismatch on the interpretation of Swedish present and past tense suffixes were tested. Both Accent 1 and Accent 2 were found to influence listeners’ response times related to decisions on verb tense. It thus seems that both word accents can facilitate online interpretation of words. Previous studies where tasks have not required suffix interpretation have only found an effect of Accent 1 patterns on Accent 2-associated suffixes. Accent 2 suffixes further yielded generally greater response times than Accent 1-associated suffixes. Different possible explanations for this are discussed.
Location: Australia
Start Date: 2018
End Date: 2019
Funder: Swedish Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 2020
End Date: 2023
Funder: Swedish Research Council
View Funded Activity