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

Abstract

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.

An investigation of prototypical and atypical within-category vowels and non-speech analogues on cortical auditory evoked related potentials (AERPs) in 9year old children

“…Furthermore, MMN is sensitive to changes in vowels that are relevant for one speaker's langauge, such as vowel duration, but not for another speaker's language (Kirmse et al, 2008). In line with previous findings, our MMN measured to within-category stimuli was quite small .…”

Activation and application of an obligatory phonotactic constraint in German during automatic speech processing is revealed by human event-related potentials

“…Frequently used consonant clusters elicited a larger MMN than sequences with a low probability of occurrence. These findings are in accord with previous studies of language-familiarity using the MMN, which have been documented for the phoneme level (e.g., Dehaene-Lambertz, 1997;Näätänen et al, 1997;Sharma and Dorman, 2000;Winkler et al, 1999; for a review, see Näätänen et al, 2007), the syllable level (e.g., Kirmse et al, 2008), and the lexical level (e.g., Pulvermüller et al, 2001;Jacobsen et al, 2004). In these studies, familiar items elicited larger MMN amplitudes reflecting long-term memory contribution.…”

Perception of a Japanese vowel length contrast by Japanese and American English listeners: Behavioral and electrophysiological measures

“…These include a number that have focused specifically on duration (or quantity) as a phonemic feature (Nenonen et al, 2003; Nenonen et al, 2005; Menning et al, 2002; Kirmse, Ylinen, Tervaniemi, Vainio, Schröger, and Jacobsen, 2008; Tervaniemi, Kruck, Baene, Schröger, Alter, & Friederici, 2009). All of these studies used a passive oddball design, in which the participant is asked to ignore the auditory modality and watch a video with the sound muted.…”