The DOI matches its Crossref record; 22 of the 22 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Language-specific phoneme representations revealed by electric and magnetic brain responses
Abstract
There is considerable debate about whether the early processing of sounds depends on whether they form part of speech. Proponents of such speech specificity postulate the existence of language-dependent memory traces, which are activated in the processing of speech but not when equally complex, acoustic non-speech stimuli are processed. Here we report the existence of these traces in the human brain. We presented to Finnish subjects the Finnish phoneme prototype /e/ as the frequent stimulus, and other Finnish phoneme prototypes or a non-prototype (the Estonian prototype /õ/) as the infrequent stimulus. We found that the brain's automatic change-detection response, reflected electrically as the mismatch negativity (MMN), was enhanced when the infrequent, deviant stimulus was a prototype (the Finnish /ö/) relative to when it was a non-prototype (the Estonian /õ/). These phonemic traces, revealed by MMN, are language-specific, as /õ/ caused enhancement of MMN in Estonians. Whole-head magnetic recordings located the source of this native-language, phoneme-related response enhancement, and thus the language-specific memory traces, in the auditory cortex of the left hemisphere.
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“Many behavioral (63–69) and brain (70–73) studies indicate that native-language phonetic prototypes evoke special responses when compared with nonprototypes.”
From A new view of language acquisition (2000) · cites this paper as [72]
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“Measurements of brain activity, for example, confirm left-hemisphere effects for native-language sounds in the mismatched negativity (MMN), an event-related potential elicited by a change in a repetitive sound pattern (72).”
From A new view of language acquisition (2000) · cites this paper as [72]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Näätänen, R., Lehtokoski, A., Lennes, M., Cheour, M., Huotilainen, M., Iivonen, A., Vainio, M., Alku, P., Ilmoniemi, R. J., Luuk, A., Allik, J., Sinkkonen, J., & Alho, K.
- Affiliations
- University of Helsinki (FI)
- University of Turku (FI)
- Helsinki University Hospital (FI)
- University of Tartu (EE)
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 1997-01
- Volume
- 385
- Issue
- 6615
- Pages
- 432-434
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2089239460
- Cited by
- 1,260
- References
- 22
- Citations by year
- 2026: 17 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 25 · 2022: 60 · 2021: 36 · 2020: 27 · 2019: 42 · 2018: 31 · 2017: 46 · 2016: 46 · 2015: 38 · 2014: 50 · 2013: 50 · 2012: 55
- FWCI
- 18.17
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Music Perception
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Phonetics and Phonology Research
- Keywords
- phonemic representation, mismatch negativity, auditory cortex, change detection, cross-linguistic comparison, left hemisphere, auditory event-related potentials, magnetoencephalography
- MeSH terms
- Acoustic Stimulation, Adult, Brain, Estonia, Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Female, Finland, Humans, Language, Magnetics, Male, Phonetics, Speech Perception
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