Processing word prosody—behavioral and neuroimaging evidence for heterogeneous performance in a language with variable stress

Abstract

In the present behavioral and fMRI study, we investigated for the first time interindividual variability in word stress processing in a language with variable stress position (German) in order to identify behavioral predictors and neural correlates underlying these differences. It has been argued that speakers of languages with variable stress should perform relatively well in tasks tapping into the representation and processing of word stress, given that this is a relevant feature of their language. Nevertheless, in previous studies on word stress processing large degrees of interindividual variability have been observed but were ignored or left unexplained. Twenty-five native speakers of German performed a sequence recall task using both segmental and suprasegmental stimuli. In general, the suprasegmental condition activated a subcortico-cortico-cerebellar network including, amongst others, bilateral inferior frontal gyrus, insula, precuneus, cerebellum, the basal ganglia, pre-SMA and SMA, which has been suggested to be dedicated to the processing of temporal aspects of speech. However, substantial interindividual differences were observed. In particular, main effects of group were observed in the left middle temporal gyrus (below vs. above average performance in stress processing) and in the left precuneus (above vs. below average). Moreover, condition (segmental vs. suprasegmental) and group (above vs. below average) interacted in the right hippocampus and cerebellum. At the behavioral level, differences in word stress processing could be partly explained by individual performance in basic auditory perception including duration discrimination and by working memory performance (WM). We conclude that even in a language with variable stress, interindividual differences in behavioral performance and in the neuro-cognitive foundations of stress processing can be observed which may partly be traced back to individual basic auditory processing and WM performance.

Short-term learning effect in different psychoacoustic measures

“…Different psychoacoustic measures have been used to assess ATP abilities. Among them are gap detection [e.g., 2,3], duration discrimination [e.g., 4,5], spectral temporal order judgment (TOJ) [e.g., 1,2,6,7], and dichotic TOJ [e.g., 1,2,6,7]. These tasks have been studied among healthy young participants and in comparison to different populations, such as aphasic patients [8][9][10][11], dyslexic readers [12][13][14][15][16], aging adults [1,6,7,[17][18][19], children with autistic spectrum disorders [20], children and young adults with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder [21,22], and sleep-deprived young adults [23,24].…”

Revisiting Stress “Deafness” in European Portuguese – A Behavioral and ERP Study

“…Besides, previous research has shown that stress processing depends crucially upon memory load (e.g., Dupoux et al, 1997, 2001; Peperkamp et al, 2010; Domahs F. et al, 2014; Heisterueber et al, 2014). For example, Dupoux et al (1997) found that in an ABX task French participants had significantly more difficulties in lexical stress discrimination than Spanish participants, while in an AX task French participants could accurately detect the acoustic correlates of lexical stress.…”

“…These results demonstrated the role of short-term memory in stress abilities. Heisterueber et al (2014) also reported that at both the behavioral and neuro-functional levels German speakers exhibited inter-individual differences in word stress processing, which might be attributed to individual working memory (WM) span. Moreover, in a non-word reading task Domahs F. et al (2014) found that German speakers’ individual WM capacity was positively correlated with their assignment of main stress to the antepenultimate syllable, and negatively correlated with the assignment of stress to the final syllable.…”

The direction of word stress processing in German: evidence from a working memory paradigm

“…We wanted to use the fact that there is a large degree of interindividual heterogeneity in word stress assignment, at least partly related to WM ( Heisterueber et al, 2014 ). Specifically, it was predicted that the proportion of computationally complex APU stress assignment across stimuli should be positively correlated with the individual WM capacity.…”