Linguistic Bias Modulates Interpretation of Speech via Neural Delta-Band Oscillations

Abstract

Language comprehension requires that single words be grouped into syntactic phrases, as words in sentences are too many to memorize individually. In speech, acoustic and syntactic grouping patterns mostly align. However, when ambiguous sentences allow for alternative grouping patterns, comprehenders may form phrases that contradict speech prosody. While delta-band oscillations are known to track prosody, we hypothesized that linguistic grouping bias can modulate the interpretational impact of speech prosody in ambiguous situations, which should surface in delta-band oscillations when grouping patterns chosen by comprehenders differ from those indicated by prosody. In our auditory electroencephalography study, the interpretation of ambiguous sentences depended on whether an identical word was either followed by a prosodic boundary or not, thereby signaling the ending or continuation of the current phrase. Delta-band oscillatory phase at the critical word should reflect whether participants terminate a phrase despite a lack of acoustic boundary cues. Crossing speech prosody with participants' grouping choice, we observed a main effect of grouping choice-independent of prosody. An internal linguistic bias for grouping words into phrases can thus modulate the interpretational impact of speech prosody via delta-band oscillatory phase.

Low-frequency Neural Activity Reflects Rule-based Chunking during Speech Listening

“…After the chunk structure is parsed, the listener could synchronize their attention and predictions to the sequence. Previous studies have suggested that entrained neural oscillations may reflect both sequence parsing (Ding et al, 2016;Kösem et al, 2016;Meyer et al, 2016;Wang et al, 2017;Meyer and Gumbert, 2018) and temporal attention/prediction (Morillon and Baillet, 2017;Jin et al, 2018;Rimmele et al, 2018), and could causally modulate speech perception (Kösem et al, 2018;Riecke et al, 2018;Zoefel et al, 2018). The current results cannot distinguish which chunk-related process drives the chunk-rate response.…”

“…In terms of the neural basis, fMRI studies have demonstrated that distributed brain areas are involved in grouping words into chunks (Friederici et al, 2000;Lerner et al, 2011;Pallier et al, 2011;Bulut et al, 2017). MEG and EEG studies have suggested that low-frequency neural activity tracks linguistic structures (Ding et al, 2016;Meyer et al, 2016;Martin and Doumas, 2017;Meyer and Gumbert, 2018). Recent work suggests that animals can also parse motor sequences into hierarchically organized chunks (Geddes et al, 2018;Jiang et al, 2018).…”

Cortical tracking of speech in noise accounts for reading strategies in children

“…65 Indeed, the brain 412 tracks phrase and sentence boundaries even when speech is devoid of prosody but only if it is 413 comprehensible; 39 and the phase of below-4-Hz brain oscillations modulates perception of 414 ambiguous sentences. 37 CTS at phrasal/sentential rate would help align neural excitability with 415 syntactic information to optimize language comprehension. 36 In contrast, CTS at syllable rate 416 (here taken as 2-8 Hz) would reflect low level auditory processing.…”

Frequency selectivity of persistent cortical oscillatory responses to auditory rhythmic stimulation

“…It resulted in an empirical definition of delta (2-3.5 Hz), theta (4-7 Hz), alpha (8)(9)(10)(11), and gamma bands (50-110 Hz). Although not prominent neither in the sEEG dataset nor in the MEG dataset, we added a beta band (12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22) Hz) based on existing literature. Indeed, previous works have shown coupling of the beta band power with the phase of the stimulus envelope at similar paces 31,92 .…”