Establishing neural representations for new word forms in 12-month-old infants.

During the first year of life, infants start to learn the lexicon of their native language. Word learning includes the establishment of longer-term representations for the phonological form and the meaning of the word in the brain, as well as the link between them. However, it is not known how the brain processes word forms immediately after they have been learned.

Analysis of Voice Changes in Early-Stage Parkinson's Disease with AVQI and ABI: A Follow-up Study.

Objectives: The purpose of this pilot study was to examine voice quality changes in individuals with early-stage Parkinson's disease (PD) utilizing the Acoustic Voice Quality Index (AVQI) and Acoustic Breathiness Index (ABI) over approximately a 1-year period.

Study Design: Follow-up study.

Methods: Baseline and follow-up data were gathered from the PDSTUlong speech corpus.

Analysis of Voice in Parkinson's Disease Utilizing the Acoustic Voice Quality Index.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to analyze the acoustic voice quality index (AVQI) in relation to perceptual analysis and disease stage in speakers with Parkinson's disease (PD).

Study Design: Cross-sectional study.

Methods: The following data were gathered from the Parkinson's Disease Speech corpus of Tampere University (PDSTU): prolonged vowels and reading samples from native Finnish speakers with PD (n = 34), speaker demographic information, and Hoehn and Yahr scale scores.

A comparative study of automatic vowel articulation index and auditory-perceptual assessments of speech intelligibility in Parkinson's disease.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyse the relationship between automatic vowel articulation index (aVAI) and direct magnitude estimation (DME) among speakers with Parkinson's disease (PD) and healthy controls. We further analysed the potential of aVAI to serve as an objective measure of speech impairment in the clinical setting.

Method: Speech samples from native Finnish speakers were utilised.

Non-game like training benefits spoken foreign-language processing in children with dyslexia.

Children with dyslexia often face difficulties in learning foreign languages, which is reflected as weaker neural activation. However, digital language-learning applications could support learning-induced plastic changes in the brain. Here we aimed to investigate whether plastic changes occur in children with dyslexia more readily after targeted training with a digital language-learning game or similar training without game-like elements.

Discriminatory Brain Processes of Native and Foreign Language in Children with and without Reading Difficulties.

The association between impaired speech perception and reading difficulty has been well established in native language processing, as can be observed from brain activity. However, there has been scarce investigation of whether this association extends to brain activity during foreign language processing. The relationship between reading skills and neuronal speech representation of foreign language remains unclear.

More efficient formation of longer-term representations for word forms at birth can be linked to better language skills at 2 years.

Infants are able to extract words from speech early in life. Here we show that the quality of forming longer-term representations for word forms at birth predicts expressive language ability at the age of two years. Seventy-five neonates were familiarized with two spoken disyllabic pseudowords.

Gaming enhances learning-induced plastic changes in the brain.

Digital games may benefit children's learning, yet the factors that induce gaming benefits to cognition are not well known. In this study, we investigated the effectiveness of digital game-based learning in children by comparing the learning of foreign speech sounds and words in a digital game or a non-game digital application. To evaluate gaming-induced plastic changes in the brain, we used the mismatch negativity (MMN) brain response that reflects the access to long-term memory representations.

Musical perceptual skills, but not neural auditory processing, are associated with better reading ability in childhood.

Musical activities have been suggested to be beneficial for language development in childhood. Randomised controlled trials using music have indicated that musical interventions can be used to support language skills in children with developmental language difficulties. However, it is not entirely clear how beneficial music activities are for normally developing children or how the effects mediated via music are transmitted.

Phonological Variations Are Compensated at the Lexical Level: Evidence From Auditory Neural Activity.

Dealing with phonological variations is important for speech processing. This article addresses whether phonological variations introduced by assimilatory processes are compensated for at the pre-lexical or lexical level, and whether the nature of variation and the phonological context influence this process. To this end, Swedish nasal regressive place assimilation was investigated using the mismatch negativity (MMN) component.

Better Phonological Short-Term Memory Is Linked to Improved Cortical Memory Representations for Word Forms and Better Word Learning.

Language learning relies on both short-term and long-term memory. Phonological short-term memory (pSTM) is thought to play an important role in the learning of novel word forms. However, language learners may differ in their ability to maintain word representations in pSTM during interfering auditory input.

Intentional Training With Speech Production Supports Children's Learning the Meanings of Foreign Words: A Comparison of Four Learning Tasks.

To determine the best techniques to teach children foreign words, we compared the effectiveness of four different learning tasks on their foreign-word learning (i.e., learning word forms and word meanings).

Rhythmic structure facilitates learning from auditory input in newborn infants.

Rhythm and metrical regularities are fundamental properties of music and poetry - and all of those are used in the interaction between infants and their parents. Music and rhythm perception have been shown to support auditory and language skills. Here we compare newborn infants' learning from a song, a nursery rhyme, and normal speech for the first time in the same study.

Diminished brain responses to second-language words are linked with native-language literacy skills in dyslexia.

Dyslexia is characterized by poor reading skills, yet often also difficulties in second-language learning. The differences between native- and second-language speech processing and the establishment of new brain representations for spoken second language in dyslexia are not, however, well understood. We used recordings of the mismatch negativity component of event-related potential to determine possible differences between the activation of long-term memory representations for spoken native- and second-language word forms in Finnish-speaking 9-11-year-old children with or without dyslexia, studying English as their second language in school.

Predictive coding accelerates word recognition and learning in the early stages of language development.

The ability to predict future events in the environment and learn from them is a fundamental component of adaptive behavior across species. Here we propose that inferring predictions facilitates speech processing and word learning in the early stages of language development. Twelve- and 24-month olds' electrophysiological brain responses to heard syllables are faster and more robust when the preceding word context predicts the ending of a familiar word.

Predictive coding of phonological rules in auditory cortex: A mismatch negativity study.

The brain is constantly generating predictions of future sensory input to enable efficient adaptation. In the auditory domain, this applies also to the processing of speech. Here we aimed to determine whether the brain predicts the following segments of speech input on the basis of language-specific phonological rules that concern non-adjacent phonemes.

Neuroscience illuminating the influence of auditory or phonological intervention on language-related deficits.

Remediation programs for language-related learning deficits are urgently needed to enable equal opportunities in education. To meet this need, different training and intervention programs have been developed. Here we review, from an educational perspective, studies that have explored the neural basis of behavioral changes induced by auditory or phonological training in dyslexia, specific language impairment (SLI), and language-learning impairment (LLI).

Two distinct auditory-motor circuits for monitoring speech production as revealed by content-specific suppression of auditory cortex.

Speech production, both overt and covert, down-regulates the activation of auditory cortex. This is thought to be due to forward prediction of the sensory consequences of speech, contributing to a feedback control mechanism for speech production. Critically, however, these regulatory effects should be specific to speech content to enable accurate speech monitoring.

Computer game as a tool for training the identification of phonemic length.

Computer-assisted training of Finnish phonemic length was conducted with 7-year-old Russian-speaking second-language learners of Finnish. Phonemic length plays a different role in these two languages. The training included game activities with two- and three-syllable word and pseudo-word minimal pairs with prototypical vowel durations.

Spatiotemporal Dynamics of the Processing of Spoken Inflected and Derived Words: A Combined EEG and MEG Study.

The spatiotemporal dynamics of the neural processing of spoken morphologically complex words are still an open issue. In the current study, we investigated the time course and neural sources of spoken inflected and derived words using simultaneously recorded electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) responses. Ten participants (native speakers) listened to inflected, derived, and monomorphemic Finnish words and judged their acceptability.

Effects of prosodic familiarity on the automatic processing of words in the human brain.

We aimed to determine the effect of prosodic familiarity on automatic word processing in the brain by comparing the mismatch negativity (MMN) components of the event-related brain potential (ERP) elicited by words and pseudowords with familiar and unfamiliar stress patterns. The results show that the MMN was elicited by a change from unfamiliar to familiar words and a change from a familiar to an unfamiliar word-stress pattern.When familiar words were accompanied by an unfamiliar stress pattern, the MMN response was significantly delayed in comparison with the familiar words with a familiar stress pattern, suggesting that an unfamiliar prosodic pattern increased the computational needs in word recognition but did not prevent it.

Training the brain to weight speech cues differently: a study of Finnish second-language users of English.

Foreign-language learning is a prime example of a task that entails perceptual learning. The correct comprehension of foreign-language speech requires the correct recognition of speech sounds. The most difficult speech-sound contrasts for foreign-language learners often are the ones that have multiple phonetic cues, especially if the cues are weighted differently in the foreign and native languages.

Parameter-specific modulation of the mismatch negativity to duration decrement and increment: evidence for asymmetric processes.

Objective: The mismatch negativity (MMN) component of event-related potentials (ERPs) reflects a change-detection process in the brain. The present study investigated whether stimulus parameters (sound type and duration) exert a differential influence on the MMN for a duration decrement and increment of an equal magnitude. Some asymmetries were reported in the previous studies; yet no systematical study has been conducted.

Modulation of the mismatch negativity (MMN) to vowel duration changes in native speakers of Finnish and German as a result of language experience.

While crucial for phoneme distinctions in the Finnish language, mere vowel duration is of lower relevance as a phonetically distinctive cue in the German language. To investigate the pre-attentive processing of vowel duration between these two languages, the mismatch negativity (MMN), a component of the auditory event-related potential (ERP) that is an index of automatic auditory change detection, was measured in Finnish and German native speakers for vowel duration changes embedded in the pseudoword sasa. Vowel duration changes thereby were presented as a shortening or a lengthening of either the first- or second-syllable vowel.

Is there a direct neural correlate for memory-trace formation in audition?

Recently, Haenschel et al. (2005) suggested that a positive event-related potential wave called 'repetition positivity' (RP) is a direct neural correlate of the formation of sensory memory traces. We investigated whether RP is elicited by familiar vowels that have previously been suggested to form accurate memory representations faster than unfamiliar sounds.