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Extracting Phonetic Features From Natural Classes: A Mismatch Negativity Study of Mandarin Chinese Retroflex Consonants

How speech sounds are represented in the brain is not fully understood. The mismatch negativity (MMN) has proven to be a powerful tool in this regard. The MMN event-related potential is elicited by a deviant stimulus embedded within a series of repeating standard stimuli. Listeners construct auditor...

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Autores principales: Fu, Zhanao, Monahan, Philip J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8029992/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33841113
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.609898
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author Fu, Zhanao
Monahan, Philip J.
author_facet Fu, Zhanao
Monahan, Philip J.
author_sort Fu, Zhanao
collection PubMed
description How speech sounds are represented in the brain is not fully understood. The mismatch negativity (MMN) has proven to be a powerful tool in this regard. The MMN event-related potential is elicited by a deviant stimulus embedded within a series of repeating standard stimuli. Listeners construct auditory memory representations of these standards despite acoustic variability. In most designs that test speech sounds, however, this variation is typically intra-category: All standards belong to the same phonetic category. In the current paper, inter-category variation is presented in the standards. These standards vary in manner of articulation but share a common phonetic feature. In the standard retroflex experimental block, Mandarin Chinese speaking participants are presented with a series of “standard” consonants that share the feature [retroflex], interrupted by infrequent non-retroflex deviants. In the non-retroflex standard experimental block, non-retroflex standards are interrupted by infrequent retroflex deviants. The within-block MMN was calculated, as was the identity MMN (iMMN) to account for intrinsic differences in responses to the stimuli. We only observed a within-block MMN to the non-retroflex deviant embedded in the standard retroflex block. This suggests that listeners extract [retroflex] despite significant inter-category variation. In the non-retroflex standard block, because there is little on which to base a coherent auditory memory representation, no within-block MMN was observed. The iMMN to the retroflex was observed in a late time-window at centro-parieto-occipital electrode sites instead of fronto-central electrodes, where the MMN is typically observed, potentially reflecting the increased difficulty posed by the added variation in the standards. In short, participants can construct auditory memory representations despite significant acoustic and inter-category phonological variation so long as a shared phonetic feature binds them together.
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spelling pubmed-80299922021-04-09 Extracting Phonetic Features From Natural Classes: A Mismatch Negativity Study of Mandarin Chinese Retroflex Consonants Fu, Zhanao Monahan, Philip J. Front Hum Neurosci Neuroscience How speech sounds are represented in the brain is not fully understood. The mismatch negativity (MMN) has proven to be a powerful tool in this regard. The MMN event-related potential is elicited by a deviant stimulus embedded within a series of repeating standard stimuli. Listeners construct auditory memory representations of these standards despite acoustic variability. In most designs that test speech sounds, however, this variation is typically intra-category: All standards belong to the same phonetic category. In the current paper, inter-category variation is presented in the standards. These standards vary in manner of articulation but share a common phonetic feature. In the standard retroflex experimental block, Mandarin Chinese speaking participants are presented with a series of “standard” consonants that share the feature [retroflex], interrupted by infrequent non-retroflex deviants. In the non-retroflex standard experimental block, non-retroflex standards are interrupted by infrequent retroflex deviants. The within-block MMN was calculated, as was the identity MMN (iMMN) to account for intrinsic differences in responses to the stimuli. We only observed a within-block MMN to the non-retroflex deviant embedded in the standard retroflex block. This suggests that listeners extract [retroflex] despite significant inter-category variation. In the non-retroflex standard block, because there is little on which to base a coherent auditory memory representation, no within-block MMN was observed. The iMMN to the retroflex was observed in a late time-window at centro-parieto-occipital electrode sites instead of fronto-central electrodes, where the MMN is typically observed, potentially reflecting the increased difficulty posed by the added variation in the standards. In short, participants can construct auditory memory representations despite significant acoustic and inter-category phonological variation so long as a shared phonetic feature binds them together. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-03-24 /pmc/articles/PMC8029992/ /pubmed/33841113 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.609898 Text en Copyright © 2021 Fu and Monahan. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Fu, Zhanao
Monahan, Philip J.
Extracting Phonetic Features From Natural Classes: A Mismatch Negativity Study of Mandarin Chinese Retroflex Consonants
title Extracting Phonetic Features From Natural Classes: A Mismatch Negativity Study of Mandarin Chinese Retroflex Consonants
title_full Extracting Phonetic Features From Natural Classes: A Mismatch Negativity Study of Mandarin Chinese Retroflex Consonants
title_fullStr Extracting Phonetic Features From Natural Classes: A Mismatch Negativity Study of Mandarin Chinese Retroflex Consonants
title_full_unstemmed Extracting Phonetic Features From Natural Classes: A Mismatch Negativity Study of Mandarin Chinese Retroflex Consonants
title_short Extracting Phonetic Features From Natural Classes: A Mismatch Negativity Study of Mandarin Chinese Retroflex Consonants
title_sort extracting phonetic features from natural classes: a mismatch negativity study of mandarin chinese retroflex consonants
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8029992/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33841113
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.609898
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