Lexical context affects mismatch negativity caused by pseudowords

Aa, Aleksandrov; Memetova, Kristina; Stankevich, L. N.

doi:10.1134/s036211971704003x

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…We wanted to use word sets that have meaning in all three Estonian quantities, but the inevitable issue with using meaningful words is that it is difficult to find structurally similar words that would also be used with similar frequency. As noted in the introduction, words that have fewer repetitions (i.e., are less common) can produce an MMN with a smaller amplitude compared to wellknown words (Aleksandrov et al, 2017a). Then again, different word frequencies are natural for real-life communication, leading us to conclude that expanded word sets should be included into future studies in order to better elucidate these aspects of the approach.…”

Section: Stimulus Wordsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…As less familiar words get a limited number of repetitions in the mental lexicon, it is harder to recognize these as meaningful words and distinguish them from pseudo words (Aleksandrov et al, 2017a). The MMN responses to well-known (high-frequency) words have greater amplitudes and earlier latencies compared to those of less-known (low-frequency) words (Davis and Gaskell, 2009;Tamminen et al, 2015;Aleksandrov et al, 2017a). The MMN response to pseudo words also differs from real words (Shtyrov et al, 2005;Shtyrov and Pulvermüller, 2007) as the main differences are between acoustic or structural traits, and the processing is not influenced by the meaning (Pulvermüller et al, 2001;Aleksandrov et al, 2017b), generating a MMN with longer duration, later latency and lower amplitude.…”

Section: The Role Of Long-term Language Experiencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is also supported by observations with asymmetric effects when both (standard and deviant) stimuli are meaningful words but differ in their frequency in a particular language. As less familiar words get a limited number of repetitions in the mental lexicon, it is harder to recognize these as meaningful words and distinguish them from pseudo words ( Aleksandrov et al, 2017a ). The MMN responses to well-known (high-frequency) words have greater amplitudes and earlier latencies compared to those of less-known (low-frequency) words ( Davis and Gaskell, 2009 ; Tamminen et al, 2015 ; Aleksandrov et al, 2017a ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Perceptual Asymmetries and Auditory Processing of Estonian Quantities

Kask

Põldver

Lippus

et al. 2021

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Similar to visual perception, auditory perception also has a clearly described “pop-out” effect, where an element with some extra feature is easier to detect among elements without an extra feature. This phenomenon is better known as auditory perceptual asymmetry. We investigated such asymmetry between shorter or longer duration, and level or falling of pitch of linguistic stimuli that carry a meaning in one language (Estonian), but not in another (Russian). For the mismatch negativity (MMN) experiment, we created four different types of stimuli by modifying the duration of the first vowel [ɑ] (170, 290 ms) and pitch contour (level vs. falling pitch) of the stimuli words (‘SATA,’ ‘SAKI’). The stimuli were synthesized from Estonian words (‘SATA,’ ‘SAKI’) and follow the Estonian language three-way quantity system, which incorporates tonal features (falling pitch contour) together with temporal patterns. This made the meaning of the word dependent on the combination of both features and allows us to compare the relative contribution of duration and pitch contour in discrimination of language stimuli in the brain via MMN generation. The participants of the experiment were 12 Russian native speakers with little or no experience in Estonian and living in Estonia short-term, and 12 Estonian native speakers (age 18–27 years). We found that participants’ perception of the linguistic stimuli differed not only according to the physical features but also according to their native language, confirming that the meaning of the word interferes with the early automatic processing of phonological features. The GAMM and ANOVA analysis of the reversed design results showed that the deviant with longer duration among shorter standards elicited a MMN response with greater amplitude than the short deviant among long standards, while changes in pitch contour (falling vs. level pitch) produced neither strong MMN nor asymmetry. Thus, we demonstrate the effect of language background on asymmetric perception of linguistic stimuli that aligns with those of previous studies (Jaramillo et al., 2000), and contributes to the growing body of knowledge supporting auditory perceptual asymmetry.

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Section: Stimulus Wordsmentioning

confidence: 97%