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. An additional non-speech condition measured the MMN to duration and frequency changes in tones. In both language groups, diminished MMN amplitudes for the shortening of vowel duration in the word-final syllable suggested a generally more difficult discrimination of vowel duration in a word-final position. Further, shorter MMN latencies for the Finns than the Germans for vowel duration as well as tone duration deviants suggested a generally higher sensitivity to duration contrasts in the Finnish language group. No latency difference between the groups was found for tone frequency processing. Moreover, the Finns, but not the Germans, showed a leftward shift of the MMN scalp distribution for changes in vowel duration, whereas the MMN topography was highly similar between both groups in the tone condition. An enhanced phonetic processing of vowel duration changes and possibly an enhanced processing of sound duration in general is thus indicated for the Finns as a result of their extensive linguistic experience with phonetically distinctive vowel duration contrasts in the native language.

ACEs were associated with down-regulation in a measure of sympathetic but no alteration in a measure of parasympathetic cardiovascular stress reactivity in adulthood. Future research will need to clarify whether this indicates risk or resilience.

a b s t r a c tObjective: This study investigated the influence of the familiarity of an environmental sound on sound processing outside the focus of attention. Methods: By comparing ERPs elicited by a familiar, animal sound and an acoustically matched, but unfamiliar, complex sound, three issues were addressed: (a) general differences in the processing of the familiar and the unfamiliar sound, (b) influences of sound familiarity on the processing of deviants unrelated to familiarity and (c) familiarity-specific processing depending on the sound context. Participants watched a silent, subtitled movie. Results: The familiar sound elicited a centro-parietal enhancement of the N1, a frontocentrally enhanced P2 and an additional P250. Auditory deviance processing elicited by deviants in sound location was not influenced by the familiarity of the sounds. However, after an involuntary switch of attention to the deviant, an N400-like deflection indicated enhanced semantic analysis of the familiar deviant. Familiarityspecific ERP effects as a consequence of the sound context occurred between 300 and 500 ms after stimulus onset. Conclusion: Whereas familiarity of an environmental sound elicited enhanced stimulus processing before 300 ms, influences of the sound context were observed subsequent to 300 ms. Significance: Familiarity of a complex environmental sound influences several stages of auditory processing outside the focus of attention.

Empathy motivates helping and cooperative behaviors and plays an important role in social interactions and personal communication. The present research examined the hypothesis that a state of empathy guides attention towards stimuli significant to others in a similar way as to stimuli relevant to the self. Sixteen couples in romantic partnerships were examined in a pain-related empathy paradigm including an anticipation phase and a stimulation phase. Abstract visual symbols (i.e., arrows and flashes) signaled the delivery of a Pain or Nopain stimulus to the partner or the self while dense sensor event-related potentials (ERPs) were simultaneously recorded from both persons. During the anticipation phase, stimuli predicting Pain compared to Nopain stimuli to the partner elicited a larger early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP), which were similar in topography and latency to the EPN and LPP modulations elicited by stimuli signaling pain for the self. Noteworthy, using abstract cue symbols to cue Pain and Nopain stimuli suggests that these effects are not driven by perceptual features. The findings demonstrate that symbolic stimuli relevant for the partner capture attention, which implies a state of empathy to the pain of the partner. From a broader perspective, states of empathy appear to regulate attention processing according to the perceived needs and goals of the partner.

We investigated the detection of rare task-irrelevant changes in the lexical status of speech stimuli. Participants performed a nonlinguistic task on word and pseudoword stimuli that occurred, in separate conditions, rarely or frequently. Task performance for pseudowords was deteriorated relative to words, suggesting unintentional lexical analysis. Furthermore, rare word and pseudoword changes had a similar effect on the event-related potentials, starting as early as 165 ms. This is the first demonstration of the automatic detection of change in lexical status that is not based on a co-occurring acoustic change. We propose that, following lexical analysis of the incoming stimuli, a mental representation of the lexical regularity is formed and used as a template against which lexical change can be detected.