Developmental Changes in Mismatch Responses to Mandarin Consonants and Lexical Tones from Early to Middle Childhood

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to use mismatch responses (MMRs) to explore the dynamic changes of Mandarin speech perception abilities from early to middle childhood. Twenty preschoolers, 18 school-aged children, and 26 adults participated in this study. Two sets of synthesized speech stimuli varying in Mandarin consonant (alveolo-palatal affricate vs. fricative) and lexical tone features (rising vs. contour tone) were used to examine the developmental course of speech perception abilities. The results indicated that only the adult group demonstrated typical early mismatch negativity (MMN) responses, suggesting that the ability to discriminate specific speech cues in Mandarin consonant and lexical tone is a continuing process in preschool- and school-aged children. Additionally, distinct MMR patterns provided evidence indicating diverse developmental courses to different speech characteristics. By incorporating data from the two speech conditions, we propose using MMR profiles consisting of mismatch negativity (MMN), positive mismatch response (p-MMR), and late discriminative negativity (LDN) as possible brain indices to investigate speech perception development.

Using a multi‐feature paradigm to measure mismatch responses to minimal sound contrasts in children with cochlear implants and hearing aids

“…In a study by Lee of 4–6‐year‐old children (Lee et al ., ), Mandarin Chinese speech sounds MMN was only seen in response to larger deviants, while p‐MMR was found in response to smaller deviants, and this effect was more pronounced in the younger subjects. Similar to these findings Liu (Liu et al ., ) found p‐MMR to small consonant contrasts in preschool‐ and school children as opposed to MMN to lexical tone contrasts. Partanen et al .…”

“…In addition to, or instead of, adult‐like MMNs, positive mismatch responses (p‐MMR) have been found in infants and children (Ahmmed, Clarke & Adams, ; Gomot et al ., ; Lee, Yim & Sim, ; Leppänen, Guttorm, Pihko, Takkinen, Eklund & Lyytinen, ; Liu, Chen & Tsao, ; Ponton, Eggermont, Kwong & Don, ; Partanen, Torppa, Pykäläinen, Kujala & Huotilainen, ; Shafer et al ., , ). Shafer et al .…”

Neural Underpinnings of Early Speech Perception and Emergent Literacy

“…Liu et al [67] examined developmental changes in MMRs to the synthesized lexical tone pair /i2/ and /i3/ in adults, preschoolers (mean age = 3.40 years), and school-aged children (mean age = 8.57 years). Although the adult data showed typical MMN at 185–335 ms, the two groups of children showed no MMR; however, these groups did show late discriminative negativity (LDN) in the later time window.…”

“…Although the adult data showed typical MMN at 185–335 ms, the two groups of children showed no MMR; however, these groups did show late discriminative negativity (LDN) in the later time window. The stimuli used by Liu et al [67] were comparable to the small deviants used by Cheng et al [65] and Lee et al [46]. …”

Neural Processing of Congruent and Incongruent Audiovisual Speech in School‐Age Children and Adults

“…In children, change detection responses occur to changes in tone frequency and duration as well as complex sounds, including speech stimuli (Cheour, Leppänen, & Kraus, , for a review). Deviant speech stimuli usually elicit a negative, adult‐like MMN in children (Cheour et al., , for a review), but sometimes also a response with a positive polarity (Lee et al., ; Liu, Chen, & Tsao, ; Partanen, Torppa, Pykäläinen, Kujala, & Huotilainen, ; Maurer, Bucher, Brem, & Brandeis, ; Maurer et al., ; Morr, Shafer, Kreuzer, & Kurtzberg, ; Shafer, Morr, Datta, Kurtzberg, & Schwartz, ; Shafer, Morr, Kreuzer, & Kurtzberg, ; Shafer, Yu, & Datta, ) at fronto‐central scalp sites.…”