Männel C, Ramos-Sanchez J, Obrig H, Ahissar M, Schaadt G. Perceptual anchoring: Children with dyslexia benefit less than controls from contextual repetitions in speech processing.
Clin Neurophysiol 2024;
166:117-128. [PMID:
39153460 DOI:
10.1016/j.clinph.2024.07.016]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/10/2023] [Revised: 07/23/2024] [Accepted: 07/24/2024] [Indexed: 08/19/2024]
Abstract
OBJECTIVES
Individuals with dyslexia perceive and utilize statistical features in the auditory input deficiently. The present study investigates whether affected children also benefit less from repeating context tones as perceptual anchors for subsequent speech processing.
METHODS
In an event-related potential study, eleven-year-old children with dyslexia (n = 21) and without dyslexia (n = 20) heard syllable pairs, with the first syllable either receiving a constant pitch (anchor) or variable pitch (no-anchor), while second syllables were identical across conditions.
RESULTS
Children with and without dyslexia showed smaller auditory P2 responses to constant-pitch versus variable-pitch first syllables, while only control children additionally showed smaller N1 and faster P1 responses. This suggests less automatic processing of anchor repetitions in dyslexia. For the second syllables, both groups showed faster P2 responses following anchor than no-anchor first syllables, but only controls additionally showed smaller P2 responses.
CONCLUSIONS
Children with and without dyslexia show differences in anchor effects. While both groups seem to allocate less attention to speech stimuli after contextual repetitions, children with dyslexia display less facilitation in speech processing from acoustic anchors.
SIGNIFICANCE
Altered anchoring in the linguistic domain may contribute to the difficulties of individuals with dyslexia in establishing long-term representations of speech.
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