1
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Dor YI, Algom D, Shakuf V, Ben-David BM. Age-related differences in processing of emotions in speech disappear with babble noise in the background. Cogn Emot 2024:1-10. [PMID: 38764186 DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2024.2351960] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/12/2023] [Accepted: 04/26/2024] [Indexed: 05/21/2024]
Abstract
Older adults process emotional speech differently than young adults, relying less on prosody (tone) relative to semantics (words). This study aimed to elucidate the mechanisms underlying these age-related differences via an emotional speech-in-noise test. A sample of 51 young and 47 older adults rated spoken sentences with emotional content on both prosody and semantics, presented on the background of wideband speech-spectrum noise (sensory interference) or on the background of multi-talker babble (sensory/cognitive interference). The presence of wideband noise eliminated age-related differences in semantics but not in prosody when processing emotional speech. Conversely, the presence of babble resulted in the elimination of age-related differences across all measures. The results suggest that both sensory and cognitive-linguistic factors contribute to age-related changes in emotional speech processing. Because real world conditions typically involve noisy background, our results highlight the importance of testing under such conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yehuda I Dor
- School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
- Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology, Reichman University (IDC), Herzliya, Israel
| | - Daniel Algom
- School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
- Department of Communication Disorders, Achva Academic College, Arugot, Israel
| | - Vered Shakuf
- Department of Communication Disorders, Achva Academic College, Arugot, Israel
| | - Boaz M Ben-David
- Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology, Reichman University (IDC), Herzliya, Israel
- KITE, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, University Health Networks (UHN), Toronto, ON, Canada
- Department of Speech-Language Pathology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
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2
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MacIntyre AD, Carlyon RP, Goehring T. Neural Decoding of the Speech Envelope: Effects of Intelligibility and Spectral Degradation. Trends Hear 2024; 28:23312165241266316. [PMID: 39183533 PMCID: PMC11345737 DOI: 10.1177/23312165241266316] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/12/2024] [Revised: 05/23/2024] [Accepted: 06/16/2024] [Indexed: 08/27/2024] Open
Abstract
During continuous speech perception, endogenous neural activity becomes time-locked to acoustic stimulus features, such as the speech amplitude envelope. This speech-brain coupling can be decoded using non-invasive brain imaging techniques, including electroencephalography (EEG). Neural decoding may provide clinical use as an objective measure of stimulus encoding by the brain-for example during cochlear implant listening, wherein the speech signal is severely spectrally degraded. Yet, interplay between acoustic and linguistic factors may lead to top-down modulation of perception, thereby complicating audiological applications. To address this ambiguity, we assess neural decoding of the speech envelope under spectral degradation with EEG in acoustically hearing listeners (n = 38; 18-35 years old) using vocoded speech. We dissociate sensory encoding from higher-order processing by employing intelligible (English) and non-intelligible (Dutch) stimuli, with auditory attention sustained using a repeated-phrase detection task. Subject-specific and group decoders were trained to reconstruct the speech envelope from held-out EEG data, with decoder significance determined via random permutation testing. Whereas speech envelope reconstruction did not vary by spectral resolution, intelligible speech was associated with better decoding accuracy in general. Results were similar across subject-specific and group analyses, with less consistent effects of spectral degradation in group decoding. Permutation tests revealed possible differences in decoder statistical significance by experimental condition. In general, while robust neural decoding was observed at the individual and group level, variability within participants would most likely prevent the clinical use of such a measure to differentiate levels of spectral degradation and intelligibility on an individual basis.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Robert P. Carlyon
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Tobias Goehring
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
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3
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Răutu IS, De Tiège X, Jousmäki V, Bourguignon M, Bertels J. Speech-derived haptic stimulation enhances speech recognition in a multi-talker background. Sci Rep 2023; 13:16621. [PMID: 37789043 PMCID: PMC10547762 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-43644-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/07/2023] [Accepted: 09/26/2023] [Indexed: 10/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Speech understanding, while effortless in quiet conditions, is challenging in noisy environments. Previous studies have revealed that a feasible approach to supplement speech-in-noise (SiN) perception consists in presenting speech-derived signals as haptic input. In the current study, we investigated whether the presentation of a vibrotactile signal derived from the speech temporal envelope can improve SiN intelligibility in a multi-talker background for untrained, normal-hearing listeners. We also determined if vibrotactile sensitivity, evaluated using vibrotactile detection thresholds, modulates the extent of audio-tactile SiN improvement. In practice, we measured participants' speech recognition in a multi-talker noise without (audio-only) and with (audio-tactile) concurrent vibrotactile stimulation delivered in three schemes: to the left or right palm, or to both. Averaged across the three stimulation delivery schemes, the vibrotactile stimulation led to a significant improvement of 0.41 dB in SiN recognition when compared to the audio-only condition. Notably, there were no significant differences observed between the improvements in these delivery schemes. In addition, audio-tactile SiN benefit was significantly predicted by participants' vibrotactile threshold levels and unimodal (audio-only) SiN performance. The extent of the improvement afforded by speech-envelope-derived vibrotactile stimulation was in line with previously uncovered vibrotactile enhancements of SiN perception in untrained listeners with no known hearing impairment. Overall, these results highlight the potential of concurrent vibrotactile stimulation to improve SiN recognition, especially in individuals with poor SiN perception abilities, and tentatively more so with increasing tactile sensitivity. Moreover, they lend support to the multimodal accounts of speech perception and research on tactile speech aid devices.
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Affiliation(s)
- I Sabina Răutu
- Laboratoire de Neuroanatomie et de Neuroimagerie Translationnelles (LN2T), UNI - ULB Neuroscience Institute, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium.
| | - Xavier De Tiège
- Laboratoire de Neuroanatomie et de Neuroimagerie Translationnelles (LN2T), UNI - ULB Neuroscience Institute, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium
- Service de Neuroimagerie Translationnelle, Hôpital Universitaire de Bruxelles (H.U.B.), CUB Hôpital Erasme, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium
| | | | - Mathieu Bourguignon
- Laboratoire de Neuroanatomie et de Neuroimagerie Translationnelles (LN2T), UNI - ULB Neuroscience Institute, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium
- BCBL, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, 20009, San Sebastián, Spain
- Laboratory of Neurophysiology and Movement Biomechanics, UNI - ULB Neuroscience Institute, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium
| | - Julie Bertels
- Laboratoire de Neuroanatomie et de Neuroimagerie Translationnelles (LN2T), UNI - ULB Neuroscience Institute, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium.
- ULBabylab, Center for Research in Cognition and Neurosciences (CRCN), UNI - ULB Neuroscience Institute, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium.
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4
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Li KE, Dimitrijevic A, Gordon KA, Pang EW, Greiner HM, Kadis DS. Age-related increases in right hemisphere support for prosodic processing in children. Sci Rep 2023; 13:15849. [PMID: 37740012 PMCID: PMC10516972 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-43027-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/01/2023] [Accepted: 09/18/2023] [Indexed: 09/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Language comprehension is a complex process involving an extensive brain network. Brain regions responsible for prosodic processing have been studied in adults; however, much less is known about the neural bases of prosodic processing in children. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we mapped regions supporting speech envelope tracking (a marker of prosodic processing) in 80 typically developing children, ages 4-18 years, completing a stories listening paradigm. Neuromagnetic signals coherent with the speech envelope were localized using dynamic imaging of coherent sources (DICS). Across the group, we observed coherence in bilateral perisylvian cortex. We observed age-related increases in coherence to the speech envelope in the right superior temporal gyrus (r = 0.31, df = 78, p = 0.0047) and primary auditory cortex (r = 0.27, df = 78, p = 0.016); age-related decreases in coherence to the speech envelope were observed in the left superior temporal gyrus (r = - 0.25, df = 78, p = 0.026). This pattern may indicate a refinement of the networks responsible for prosodic processing during development, where language areas in the right hemisphere become increasingly specialized for prosodic processing. Altogether, these results reveal a distinct neurodevelopmental trajectory for the processing of prosodic cues, highlighting the presence of supportive language functions in the right hemisphere. Findings from this dataset of typically developing children may serve as a potential reference timeline for assessing children with neurodevelopmental hearing and speech disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kristen E Li
- Department of Physiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Neurosciences and Mental Health, Hospital for Sick Children, 686 Bay Street, Toronto, ON, M5G 0A4, Canada
| | - Andrew Dimitrijevic
- Department of Physiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Department of Otolaryngology, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Department of Otolaryngology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Karen A Gordon
- Neurosciences and Mental Health, Hospital for Sick Children, 686 Bay Street, Toronto, ON, M5G 0A4, Canada
- Department of Otolaryngology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Elizabeth W Pang
- Neurosciences and Mental Health, Hospital for Sick Children, 686 Bay Street, Toronto, ON, M5G 0A4, Canada
- Division of Neurology, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Hansel M Greiner
- Division of Neurology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
- Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA
| | - Darren S Kadis
- Department of Physiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
- Neurosciences and Mental Health, Hospital for Sick Children, 686 Bay Street, Toronto, ON, M5G 0A4, Canada.
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5
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Lindboom E, Nidiffer A, Carney LH, Lalor EC. Incorporating models of subcortical processing improves the ability to predict EEG responses to natural speech. Hear Res 2023; 433:108767. [PMID: 37060895 PMCID: PMC10559335 DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2023.108767] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/31/2022] [Revised: 03/29/2023] [Accepted: 04/09/2023] [Indexed: 04/17/2023]
Abstract
The goal of describing how the human brain responds to complex acoustic stimuli has driven auditory neuroscience research for decades. Often, a systems-based approach has been taken, in which neurophysiological responses are modeled based on features of the presented stimulus. This includes a wealth of work modeling electroencephalogram (EEG) responses to complex acoustic stimuli such as speech. Examples of the acoustic features used in such modeling include the amplitude envelope and spectrogram of speech. These models implicitly assume a direct mapping from stimulus representation to cortical activity. However, in reality, the representation of sound is transformed as it passes through early stages of the auditory pathway, such that inputs to the cortex are fundamentally different from the raw audio signal that was presented. Thus, it could be valuable to account for the transformations taking place in lower-order auditory areas, such as the auditory nerve, cochlear nucleus, and inferior colliculus (IC) when predicting cortical responses to complex sounds. Specifically, because IC responses are more similar to cortical inputs than acoustic features derived directly from the audio signal, we hypothesized that linear mappings (temporal response functions; TRFs) fit to the outputs of an IC model would better predict EEG responses to speech stimuli. To this end, we modeled responses to the acoustic stimuli as they passed through the auditory nerve, cochlear nucleus, and inferior colliculus before fitting a TRF to the output of the modeled IC responses. Results showed that using model-IC responses in traditional systems analyzes resulted in better predictions of EEG activity than using the envelope or spectrogram of a speech stimulus. Further, it was revealed that model-IC derived TRFs predict different aspects of the EEG than acoustic-feature TRFs, and combining both types of TRF models provides a more accurate prediction of the EEG response.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elsa Lindboom
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA
| | - Aaron Nidiffer
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA; Department of Neuroscience and Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA
| | - Laurel H Carney
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA; Department of Neuroscience and Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA; Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA.
| | - Edmund C Lalor
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA; Department of Neuroscience and Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA
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6
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Kovács P, Tóth B, Honbolygó F, Szalárdy O, Kohári A, Mády K, Magyari L, Winkler I. Speech prosody supports speaker selection and auditory stream segregation in a multi-talker situation. Brain Res 2023; 1805:148246. [PMID: 36657631 DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2023.148246] [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: 09/06/2022] [Revised: 01/06/2023] [Accepted: 01/12/2023] [Indexed: 01/19/2023]
Abstract
To process speech in a multi-talker environment, listeners need to segregate the mixture of incoming speech streams and focus their attention on one of them. Potentially, speech prosody could aid the segregation of different speakers, the selection of the desired speech stream, and detecting targets within the attended stream. For testing these issues, we recorded behavioral responses and extracted event-related potentials and functional brain networks from electroencephalographic signals recorded while participants listened to two concurrent speech streams, performing a lexical detection and a recognition memory task in parallel. Prosody manipulation was applied to the attended speech stream in one group of participants and to the ignored speech stream in another group. Naturally recorded speech stimuli were either intact, synthetically F0-flattened, or prosodically suppressed by the speaker. Results show that prosody - especially the parsing cues mediated by speech rate - facilitates stream selection, while playing a smaller role in auditory stream segmentation and target detection.
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Affiliation(s)
- Petra Kovács
- Department of Cognitive Science, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary
| | - Brigitta Tóth
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Center for Natural Sciences, Hungary.
| | - Ferenc Honbolygó
- Brain Imaging Center, Research Center for Natural Sciences, Hungary
| | - Orsolya Szalárdy
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Center for Natural Sciences, Hungary; Institute of Behavioural Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary
| | - Anna Kohári
- Research Group of Phonetics, Institute for General and Hungarian Linguistics, Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics, Hungary
| | - Katalin Mády
- Research Group of Phonetics, Institute for General and Hungarian Linguistics, Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics, Hungary
| | - Lilla Magyari
- Department of Social Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway; Norwegian Centre for Reading Education and Research, Faculty of Arts and Education, University of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway
| | - István Winkler
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Center for Natural Sciences, Hungary
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7
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Incorporating models of subcortical processing improves the ability to predict EEG responses to natural speech. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.01.02.522438. [PMID: 36711934 PMCID: PMC9881851 DOI: 10.1101/2023.01.02.522438] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/05/2023]
Abstract
The goal of describing how the human brain responds to complex acoustic stimuli has driven auditory neuroscience research for decades. Often, a systems-based approach has been taken, in which neurophysiological responses are modeled based on features of the presented stimulus. This includes a wealth of work modeling electroencephalogram (EEG) responses to complex acoustic stimuli such as speech. Examples of the acoustic features used in such modeling include the amplitude envelope and spectrogram of speech. These models implicitly assume a direct mapping from stimulus representation to cortical activity. However, in reality, the representation of sound is transformed as it passes through early stages of the auditory pathway, such that inputs to the cortex are fundamentally different from the raw audio signal that was presented. Thus, it could be valuable to account for the transformations taking place in lower-order auditory areas, such as the auditory nerve, cochlear nucleus, and inferior colliculus (IC) when predicting cortical responses to complex sounds. Specifically, because IC responses are more similar to cortical inputs than acoustic features derived directly from the audio signal, we hypothesized that linear mappings (temporal response functions; TRFs) fit to the outputs of an IC model would better predict EEG responses to speech stimuli. To this end, we modeled responses to the acoustic stimuli as they passed through the auditory nerve, cochlear nucleus, and inferior colliculus before fitting a TRF to the output of the modeled IC responses. Results showed that using model-IC responses in traditional systems analyses resulted in better predictions of EEG activity than using the envelope or spectrogram of a speech stimulus. Further, it was revealed that model-IC derived TRFs predict different aspects of the EEG than acoustic-feature TRFs, and combining both types of TRF models provides a more accurate prediction of the EEG response.x.
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8
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Niesen M, Bourguignon M, Bertels J, Vander Ghinst M, Wens V, Goldman S, De Tiège X. Cortical tracking of lexical speech units in a multi-talker background is immature in school-aged children. Neuroimage 2023; 265:119770. [PMID: 36462732 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119770] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2022] [Revised: 11/09/2022] [Accepted: 11/23/2022] [Indexed: 12/03/2022] Open
Abstract
Children have more difficulty perceiving speech in noise than adults. Whether this difficulty relates to an immature processing of prosodic or linguistic elements of the attended speech is still unclear. To address the impact of noise on linguistic processing per se, we assessed how babble noise impacts the cortical tracking of intelligible speech devoid of prosody in school-aged children and adults. Twenty adults and twenty children (7-9 years) listened to synthesized French monosyllabic words presented at 2.5 Hz, either randomly or in 4-word hierarchical structures wherein 2 words formed a phrase at 1.25 Hz, and 2 phrases formed a sentence at 0.625 Hz, with or without babble noise. Neuromagnetic responses to words, phrases and sentences were identified and source-localized. Children and adults displayed significant cortical tracking of words in all conditions, and of phrases and sentences only when words formed meaningful sentences. In children compared with adults, the cortical tracking was lower for all linguistic units in conditions without noise. In the presence of noise, the cortical tracking was similarly reduced for sentence units in both groups, but remained stable for phrase units. Critically, when there was noise, adults increased the cortical tracking of monosyllabic words in the inferior frontal gyri and supratemporal auditory cortices but children did not. This study demonstrates that the difficulties of school-aged children in understanding speech in a multi-talker background might be partly due to an immature tracking of lexical but not supra-lexical linguistic units.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maxime Niesen
- Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), UNI - ULB Neurosciences Institute, Laboratoire de Neuroanatomie et de Neuroimagerie translationnelles (LN2T), 1070 Brussels, Belgium; Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Hôpital Universitaire de Bruxelles (HUB), CUB Hôpital Erasme, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, 1070 Brussels, Belgium.
| | - Mathieu Bourguignon
- Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), UNI - ULB Neurosciences Institute, Laboratoire de Neuroanatomie et de Neuroimagerie translationnelles (LN2T), 1070 Brussels, Belgium; Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), UNI-ULB Neuroscience Institute, Laboratory of Neurophysiology and Movement Biomechanics, 1070 Brussels, Belgium.; BCBL, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, 20009 San Sebastian, Spain
| | - Julie Bertels
- Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), UNI - ULB Neurosciences Institute, Laboratoire de Neuroanatomie et de Neuroimagerie translationnelles (LN2T), 1070 Brussels, Belgium; Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), UNI-ULB Neuroscience Institute, Cognition and Computation group, ULBabyLab - Consciousness, Brussels, Belgium
| | - Marc Vander Ghinst
- Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), UNI - ULB Neurosciences Institute, Laboratoire de Neuroanatomie et de Neuroimagerie translationnelles (LN2T), 1070 Brussels, Belgium; Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Hôpital Universitaire de Bruxelles (HUB), CUB Hôpital Erasme, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, 1070 Brussels, Belgium
| | - Vincent Wens
- Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), UNI - ULB Neurosciences Institute, Laboratoire de Neuroanatomie et de Neuroimagerie translationnelles (LN2T), 1070 Brussels, Belgium; Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Hôpital Universitaire de Bruxelles (HUB), CUB Hôpital Erasme, Department of translational Neuroimaging, 1070 Brussels, Belgium
| | - Serge Goldman
- Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), UNI - ULB Neurosciences Institute, Laboratoire de Neuroanatomie et de Neuroimagerie translationnelles (LN2T), 1070 Brussels, Belgium; Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Hôpital Universitaire de Bruxelles (HUB), CUB Hôpital Erasme, Department of Nuclear Medicine, 1070 Brussels, Belgium
| | - Xavier De Tiège
- Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), UNI - ULB Neurosciences Institute, Laboratoire de Neuroanatomie et de Neuroimagerie translationnelles (LN2T), 1070 Brussels, Belgium; Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Hôpital Universitaire de Bruxelles (HUB), CUB Hôpital Erasme, Department of translational Neuroimaging, 1070 Brussels, Belgium
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9
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Luo C, Gao Y, Fan J, Liu Y, Yu Y, Zhang X. Compromised word-level neural tracking in the high-gamma band for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Front Hum Neurosci 2023; 17:1174720. [PMID: 37213926 PMCID: PMC10196181 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2023.1174720] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/27/2023] [Accepted: 04/18/2023] [Indexed: 05/23/2023] Open
Abstract
Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) exhibit pervasive difficulties in speech perception. Given that speech processing involves both acoustic and linguistic stages, it remains unclear which stage of speech processing is impaired in children with ADHD. To investigate this issue, we measured neural tracking of speech at syllable and word levels using electroencephalography (EEG), and evaluated the relationship between neural responses and ADHD symptoms in 6-8 years old children. Twenty-three children participated in the current study, and their ADHD symptoms were assessed with SNAP-IV questionnaires. In the experiment, the children listened to hierarchical speech sequences in which syllables and words were, respectively, repeated at 2.5 and 1.25 Hz. Using frequency domain analyses, reliable neural tracking of syllables and words was observed in both the low-frequency band (<4 Hz) and the high-gamma band (70-160 Hz). However, the neural tracking of words in the high-gamma band showed an anti-correlation with the ADHD symptom scores of the children. These results indicate that ADHD prominently impairs cortical encoding of linguistic information (e.g., words) in speech perception.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cheng Luo
- Research Center for Applied Mathematics and Machine Intelligence, Research Institute of Basic Theories, Zhejiang Lab, Hangzhou, China
- Cheng Luo,
| | - Yayue Gao
- Department of Psychology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Beihang University, Beijing, China
- *Correspondence: Yayue Gao,
| | - Jianing Fan
- Department of Psychology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Beihang University, Beijing, China
| | - Yang Liu
- Department of Psychology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Beihang University, Beijing, China
| | - Yonglin Yu
- Department of Rehabilitation, The Children’s Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, National Clinical Research Center for Child Health, Hangzhou, China
- Yonglin Yu,
| | - Xin Zhang
- Department of Neurology, The Children’s Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, National Clinical Research Center for Child Health, Hangzhou, China
- Xin Zhang,
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10
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Boos M, Kobi M, Elmer S, Jäncke L. The influence of experience on cognitive load during simultaneous interpretation. BRAIN AND LANGUAGE 2022; 234:105185. [PMID: 36130466 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2022.105185] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/25/2022] [Revised: 08/01/2022] [Accepted: 09/07/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Simultaneous interpretation is a complex task that is assumed to be associated with a high workload. To corroborate this association, we measured workload during three tasks of increasing complexity: listening, shadowing, and interpreting, using electroencephalography and self-assessments in four groups of participants with varying experience in simultaneous interpretation. The self-assessment data showed that professional interpreters perceived the most workload-inducing condition, namely the interpreting task, as less demanding compared to the less experienced participants. This higher subjectively perceived workload in non-interpreters was paralleled by increasing frontal theta power values from listening to interpreting, whereas such a modulation was less pronounced in professional interpreters. Furthermore, regarding both workload measures, trainee interpreters were situated between professional interpreters and non-interpreters. Since the non-interpreters demonstrated high proficiencies and exposure in their second language, too, our findings provide evidence for an influence of interpretation training on experienced workload during simultaneous interpretation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael Boos
- Division Neuropsychology, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Binzmühlestrasse 14/25, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland.
| | - Matthias Kobi
- Division Neuropsychology, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Binzmühlestrasse 14/25, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland.
| | - Stefan Elmer
- Division Neuropsychology, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Binzmühlestrasse 14/25, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland; Computational Neuroscience of Speech & Hearing, Department of Computational Linguistics, University of Zurich, Andreasstrasse 15, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland.
| | - Lutz Jäncke
- Division Neuropsychology, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Binzmühlestrasse 14/25, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland; University Research Priority Program (URPP) "Dynamics of Healthy Aging", University of Zurich, Andreasstrasse 15/2, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland.
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11
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Gnanateja GN, Devaraju DS, Heyne M, Quique YM, Sitek KR, Tardif MC, Tessmer R, Dial HR. On the Role of Neural Oscillations Across Timescales in Speech and Music Processing. Front Comput Neurosci 2022; 16:872093. [PMID: 35814348 PMCID: PMC9260496 DOI: 10.3389/fncom.2022.872093] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/09/2022] [Accepted: 05/24/2022] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
This mini review is aimed at a clinician-scientist seeking to understand the role of oscillations in neural processing and their functional relevance in speech and music perception. We present an overview of neural oscillations, methods used to study them, and their functional relevance with respect to music processing, aging, hearing loss, and disorders affecting speech and language. We first review the oscillatory frequency bands and their associations with speech and music processing. Next we describe commonly used metrics for quantifying neural oscillations, briefly touching upon the still-debated mechanisms underpinning oscillatory alignment. Following this, we highlight key findings from research on neural oscillations in speech and music perception, as well as contributions of this work to our understanding of disordered perception in clinical populations. Finally, we conclude with a look toward the future of oscillatory research in speech and music perception, including promising methods and potential avenues for future work. We note that the intention of this mini review is not to systematically review all literature on cortical tracking of speech and music. Rather, we seek to provide the clinician-scientist with foundational information that can be used to evaluate and design research studies targeting the functional role of oscillations in speech and music processing in typical and clinical populations.
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Affiliation(s)
- G. Nike Gnanateja
- Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States
| | - Dhatri S. Devaraju
- Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States
| | - Matthias Heyne
- Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States
| | - Yina M. Quique
- Center for Education in Health Sciences, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States
| | - Kevin R. Sitek
- Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States
| | - Monique C. Tardif
- Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States
| | - Rachel Tessmer
- Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, United States
| | - Heather R. Dial
- Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, United States
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Houston, Houston, TX, United States
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12
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Dor YI, Algom D, Shakuf V, Ben-David BM. Age-Related Changes in the Perception of Emotions in Speech: Assessing Thresholds of Prosody and Semantics Recognition in Noise for Young and Older Adults. Front Neurosci 2022; 16:846117. [PMID: 35546888 PMCID: PMC9082150 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2022.846117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/30/2021] [Accepted: 03/14/2022] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Older adults process emotions in speech differently than do young adults. However, it is unclear whether these age-related changes impact all speech channels to the same extent, and whether they originate from a sensory or a cognitive source. The current study adopted a psychophysical approach to directly compare young and older adults’ sensory thresholds for emotion recognition in two channels of spoken-emotions: prosody (tone) and semantics (words). A total of 29 young adults and 26 older adults listened to 50 spoken sentences presenting different combinations of emotions across prosody and semantics. They were asked to recognize the prosodic or semantic emotion, in separate tasks. Sentences were presented on the background of speech-spectrum noise ranging from SNR of −15 dB (difficult) to +5 dB (easy). Individual recognition thresholds were calculated (by fitting psychometric functions) separately for prosodic and semantic recognition. Results indicated that: (1). recognition thresholds were better for young over older adults, suggesting an age-related general decrease across channels; (2). recognition thresholds were better for prosody over semantics, suggesting a prosodic advantage; (3). importantly, the prosodic advantage in thresholds did not differ between age groups (thus a sensory source for age-related differences in spoken-emotions processing was not supported); and (4). larger failures of selective attention were found for older adults than for young adults, indicating that older adults experienced larger difficulties in inhibiting irrelevant information. Taken together, results do not support a sole sensory source, but rather an interplay of cognitive and sensory sources for age-related differences in spoken-emotions processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yehuda I Dor
- School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.,Communication, Aging and Neuropsychology Lab (CANlab), Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology, Reichman University (IDC), Herzliya, Israel
| | - Daniel Algom
- School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
| | - Vered Shakuf
- Department of Communications Disorders, Achva Academic College, Arugot, Israel
| | - Boaz M Ben-David
- Communication, Aging and Neuropsychology Lab (CANlab), Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology, Reichman University (IDC), Herzliya, Israel.,Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, University Health Networks (UHN), Toronto, ON, Canada.,Department of Speech-Language Pathology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
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13
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Di Liberto GM, Hjortkjær J, Mesgarani N. Editorial: Neural Tracking: Closing the Gap Between Neurophysiology and Translational Medicine. Front Neurosci 2022; 16:872600. [PMID: 35368278 PMCID: PMC8966872 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2022.872600] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/09/2022] [Accepted: 02/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Giovanni M. Di Liberto
- School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
- ADAPT Centre, d-real, Trinity College Institute for Neuroscience, Dublin, Ireland
- *Correspondence: Giovanni M. Di Liberto
| | - Jens Hjortkjær
- Hearing Systems Group, Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Ireland
| | - Nima Mesgarani
- Electrical Engineering Department, Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States
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14
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Marimon M, Höhle B, Langus A. Pupillary entrainment reveals individual differences in cue weighting in 9-month-old German-learning infants. Cognition 2022; 224:105054. [PMID: 35217262 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105054] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/09/2021] [Revised: 01/30/2022] [Accepted: 01/31/2022] [Indexed: 02/08/2023]
Abstract
Young infants can segment continuous speech with statistical as well as prosodic cues. Understanding how these cues interact can be informative about how infants solve the segmentation problem. Here we investigate how German-speaking adults and 9-month-old German-learning infants weigh statistical and prosodic cues when segmenting continuous speech. We measured participants' pupil size while they were familiarized with a continuous speech stream where prosodic cues were pitted off against transitional probabilities. Adult participants' changes in pupil size synchronized with the occurrence of prosodic words during the familiarization and the temporal alignment of these pupillary changes was predictive of adult participants' performance at test. Further, 9-month-olds as a group failed to consistently segment the familiarization stream with prosodic or statistical cues. However, the variability in temporal alignment of the pupillary changes at word frequency showed that prosodic and statistical cues compete for dominance when segmenting continuous speech. A follow-up language development questionnaire at 40 months of age suggested that infants who entrained to prosodic words performed better on a vocabulary task and those infants who relied more on statistical cues performed better on grammatical tasks. Together these results suggest that statistics and prosody may serve different roles in speech segmentation in infancy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mireia Marimon
- University of Potsdam, Cognitive Sciences, Department of Linguistics, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24-25, D-14476 Potsdam, Germany
| | - Barbara Höhle
- University of Potsdam, Cognitive Sciences, Department of Linguistics, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24-25, D-14476 Potsdam, Germany
| | - Alan Langus
- University of Potsdam, Cognitive Sciences, Department of Linguistics, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24-25, D-14476 Potsdam, Germany.
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15
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Palana J, Schwartz S, Tager-Flusberg H. Evaluating the Use of Cortical Entrainment to Measure Atypical Speech Processing: A Systematic Review. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2021; 133:104506. [PMID: 34942267 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.12.029] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/23/2020] [Revised: 12/12/2021] [Accepted: 12/18/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Cortical entrainment has emerged as promising means for measuring continuous speech processing in young, neurotypical adults. However, its utility for capturing atypical speech processing has not been systematically reviewed. OBJECTIVES Synthesize evidence regarding the merit of measuring cortical entrainment to capture atypical speech processing and recommend avenues for future research. METHOD We systematically reviewed publications investigating entrainment to continuous speech in populations with auditory processing differences. RESULTS In the 25 publications reviewed, most studies were conducted on older and/or hearing-impaired adults, for whom slow-wave entrainment to speech was often heightened compared to controls. Research conducted on populations with neurodevelopmental disorders, in whom slow-wave entrainment was often reduced, was less common. Across publications, findings highlighted associations between cortical entrainment and speech processing performance differences. CONCLUSIONS Measures of cortical entrainment offer useful means of capturing speech processing differences and future research should leverage them more extensively when studying populations with neurodevelopmental disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joseph Palana
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, 64 Cummington Mall, Boston, MA, 02215, USA; Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Division of Developmental Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston Children's Hospital, 1 Autumn Street, Boston, MA, 02215, USA
| | - Sophie Schwartz
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, 64 Cummington Mall, Boston, MA, 02215, USA
| | - Helen Tager-Flusberg
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, 64 Cummington Mall, Boston, MA, 02215, USA.
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16
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Klimovich-Gray A, Barrena A, Agirre E, Molinaro N. One Way or Another: Cortical Language Areas Flexibly Adapt Processing Strategies to Perceptual And Contextual Properties of Speech. Cereb Cortex 2021; 31:4092-4103. [PMID: 33825884 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhab071] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/31/2020] [Revised: 02/24/2021] [Accepted: 02/25/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Cortical circuits rely on the temporal regularities of speech to optimize signal parsing for sound-to-meaning mapping. Bottom-up speech analysis is accelerated by top-down predictions about upcoming words. In everyday communications, however, listeners are regularly presented with challenging input-fluctuations of speech rate or semantic content. In this study, we asked how reducing speech temporal regularity affects its processing-parsing, phonological analysis, and ability to generate context-based predictions. To ensure that spoken sentences were natural and approximated semantic constraints of spontaneous speech we built a neural network to select stimuli from large corpora. We analyzed brain activity recorded with magnetoencephalography during sentence listening using evoked responses, speech-to-brain synchronization and representational similarity analysis. For normal speech theta band (6.5-8 Hz) speech-to-brain synchronization was increased and the left fronto-temporal areas generated stronger contextual predictions. The reverse was true for temporally irregular speech-weaker theta synchronization and reduced top-down effects. Interestingly, delta-band (0.5 Hz) speech tracking was greater when contextual/semantic predictions were lower or if speech was temporally jittered. We conclude that speech temporal regularity is relevant for (theta) syllabic tracking and robust semantic predictions while the joint support of temporal and contextual predictability reduces word and phrase-level cortical tracking (delta).
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Ander Barrena
- Computer Science Faculty, University of the Basque Country, Donostia, 20018, San Sebastian, Spain
| | - Eneko Agirre
- Computer Science Faculty, University of the Basque Country, Donostia, 20018, San Sebastian, Spain
| | - Nicola Molinaro
- BCBL, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Donostia, 20009, San Sebastian, Spain.,Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, 48009, Bilbao, Spain
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17
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Elmer S, Valizadeh SA, Cunillera T, Rodriguez-Fornells A. Statistical learning and prosodic bootstrapping differentially affect neural synchronization during speech segmentation. Neuroimage 2021; 235:118051. [PMID: 33848624 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118051] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/13/2020] [Revised: 03/12/2021] [Accepted: 04/05/2021] [Indexed: 10/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Neural oscillations constitute an intrinsic property of functional brain organization that facilitates the tracking of linguistic units at multiple time scales through brain-to-stimulus alignment. This ubiquitous neural principle has been shown to facilitate speech segmentation and word learning based on statistical regularities. However, there is no common agreement yet on whether speech segmentation is mediated by a transition of neural synchronization from syllable to word rate, or whether the two time scales are concurrently tracked. Furthermore, it is currently unknown whether syllable transition probability contributes to speech segmentation when lexical stress cues can be directly used to extract word forms. Using Inter-Trial Coherence (ITC) analyses in combinations with Event-Related Potentials (ERPs), we showed that speech segmentation based on both statistical regularities and lexical stress cues was accompanied by concurrent neural synchronization to syllables and words. In particular, ITC at the word rate was generally higher in structured compared to random sequences, and this effect was particularly pronounced in the flat condition. Furthermore, ITC at the syllable rate dynamically increased across the blocks of the flat condition, whereas a similar modulation was not observed in the stressed condition. Notably, in the flat condition ITC at both time scales correlated with each other, and changes in neural synchronization were accompanied by a rapid reconfiguration of the P200 and N400 components with a close relationship between ITC and ERPs. These results highlight distinct computational principles governing neural synchronization to pertinent linguistic units while segmenting speech under different listening conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stefan Elmer
- Auditory Research Group Zurich (ARGZ), Division Neuropsychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Zurich, Binzmühlestrasse 14/25, Zurich 8050, Switzerland; Cognition and Brain Plasticity Group, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona 08097, Spain.
| | - Seyed Abolfazl Valizadeh
- Auditory Research Group Zurich (ARGZ), Division Neuropsychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Zurich, Binzmühlestrasse 14/25, Zurich 8050, Switzerland; Department of Internal Medicine, University Hospital, University of Zurich, Zurich 8091, Switzerland; University Research Priority Program, "Dynamics of Healthy Aging", University of Zurich, Zurich 8050, Switzerland.
| | - Toni Cunillera
- Department of Cognition, Development and Educational Psychology, Barcelona 08035, University of Barcelona, Spain.
| | - Antoni Rodriguez-Fornells
- Department of Cognition, Development and Educational Psychology, Campus Bellvitge, University of Barcelona, 5L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona 08097, Spain; Cognition and Brain Plasticity Group, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona 08097, Spain; Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, ICREA, Barcelona 08010, Spain.
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18
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Sammler D, Elmer S. Advances in the Neurocognition of Music and Language. Brain Sci 2020; 10:brainsci10080509. [PMID: 32748810 PMCID: PMC7464495 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci10080509] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2020] [Accepted: 07/30/2020] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Neurocomparative music and language research has seen major advances over the past two decades. The goal of this Special Issue “Advances in the Neurocognition of Music and Language” was to showcase the multiple neural analogies between musical and linguistic information processing, their entwined organization in human perception and cognition and to infer the applicability of the combined knowledge in pedagogy and therapy. Here, we summarize the main insights provided by the contributions and integrate them into current frameworks of rhythm processing, neuronal entrainment, predictive coding and cognitive control.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniela Sammler
- Otto Hahn Group Neural Bases of Intonation in Speech and Music, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
- Correspondence: (D.S.); (S.E.)
| | - Stefan Elmer
- Auditory Research Group Zurich (ARGZ), Division Neuropsychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Zurich, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland
- Correspondence: (D.S.); (S.E.)
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19
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Caccia M, Lorusso ML. The processing of rhythmic structures in music and prosody by children with developmental dyslexia and developmental language disorder. Dev Sci 2020; 24:e12981. [PMID: 32356924 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12981] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/13/2019] [Revised: 04/08/2020] [Accepted: 04/09/2020] [Indexed: 01/24/2023]
Abstract
Rhythm perception seems to be crucial to language development. Many studies have shown that children with developmental dyslexia and developmental language disorder have difficulties in processing rhythmic structures. In this study, we investigated the relationships between prosody and musical processing in Italian children with typical and atypical development. The tasks aimed to reproduce linguistic prosodic structures through musical sequences, offering a direct comparison between the two domains without violating the specificities of each one. About 16 Typically Developing children, 16 children with a diagnosis of Developmental Dyslexia, and 16 with a diagnosis of developmental language disorder (age 10-13 years) participated in the experimental study. Three tasks were administered: an association task between a sentence and its humming version, a stress discrimination task (between couples of sounds reproducing the intonation of Italian trisyllabic words), and an association task between trisyllabic nonwords with different stress position and three-notes musical sequences with different musical stress. Children with developmental language disorder perform significantly lower than Typically Developing children on the humming test. By contrast, children with developmental dyslexia are significantly slower than TD in associating nonwords with musical sequences. Accuracy and speed in the experimental tests correlate with metaphonological, language, and word reading scores. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed within a multidimensional model of neurodevelopmental disorders including prosodic and rhythmic skills at word and sentence level.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martina Caccia
- Unit of Child Psychopathology - Neurodevelopmental Disorders of Language and Learning, Scientific Institute IRCCS E. Medea, Bosisio Parini, Italy.,School of Advanced Studies IUSS Pavia - Center of Neurocognition, Epistemology and Theoretical Syntax (NETS), Pavia, Italy
| | - Maria Luisa Lorusso
- Unit of Child Psychopathology - Neurodevelopmental Disorders of Language and Learning, Scientific Institute IRCCS E. Medea, Bosisio Parini, Italy
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20
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Ladányi E, Persici V, Fiveash A, Tillmann B, Gordon RL. Is atypical rhythm a risk factor for developmental speech and language disorders? WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS. COGNITIVE SCIENCE 2020; 11:e1528. [PMID: 32244259 PMCID: PMC7415602 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.1528] [Citation(s) in RCA: 60] [Impact Index Per Article: 15.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/06/2019] [Revised: 03/07/2020] [Accepted: 03/09/2020] [Indexed: 01/07/2023]
Abstract
Although a growing literature points to substantial variation in speech/language abilities related to individual differences in musical abilities, mainstream models of communication sciences and disorders have not yet incorporated these individual differences into childhood speech/language development. This article reviews three sources of evidence in a comprehensive body of research aligning with three main themes: (a) associations between musical rhythm and speech/language processing, (b) musical rhythm in children with developmental speech/language disorders and common comorbid attentional and motor disorders, and (c) individual differences in mechanisms underlying rhythm processing in infants and their relationship with later speech/language development. In light of converging evidence on associations between musical rhythm and speech/language processing, we propose the Atypical Rhythm Risk Hypothesis, which posits that individuals with atypical rhythm are at higher risk for developmental speech/language disorders. The hypothesis is framed within the larger epidemiological literature in which recent methodological advances allow for large-scale testing of shared underlying biology across clinically distinct disorders. A series of predictions for future work testing the Atypical Rhythm Risk Hypothesis are outlined. We suggest that if a significant body of evidence is found to support this hypothesis, we can envision new risk factor models that incorporate atypical rhythm to predict the risk of developing speech/language disorders. Given the high prevalence of speech/language disorders in the population and the negative long-term social and economic consequences of gaps in identifying children at-risk, these new lines of research could potentially positively impact access to early identification and treatment. This article is categorized under: Linguistics > Language in Mind and Brain Neuroscience > Development Linguistics > Language Acquisition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Enikő Ladányi
- Department of Otolaryngology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
| | - Valentina Persici
- Department of Otolaryngology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.,Department of Psychology, Università degli Studi di Milano - Bicocca, Milan, Italy.,Vanderbilt Brain Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
| | - Anna Fiveash
- Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Auditory Cognition and Psychoacoustics Team, CRNL, INSERM, University of Lyon 1, U1028, CNRS, UMR5292, Lyon, France
| | - Barbara Tillmann
- Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Auditory Cognition and Psychoacoustics Team, CRNL, INSERM, University of Lyon 1, U1028, CNRS, UMR5292, Lyon, France
| | - Reyna L Gordon
- Department of Otolaryngology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.,Vanderbilt Brain Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.,Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.,Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
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21
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Snijders TM, Benders T, Fikkert P. Infants Segment Words from Songs-An EEG Study. Brain Sci 2020; 10:E39. [PMID: 31936586 PMCID: PMC7017257 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci10010039] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/25/2019] [Revised: 12/25/2019] [Accepted: 01/06/2020] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Children's songs are omnipresent and highly attractive stimuli in infants' input. Previous work suggests that infants process linguistic-phonetic information from simplified sung melodies. The present study investigated whether infants learn words from ecologically valid children's songs. Testing 40 Dutch-learning 10-month-olds in a familiarization-then-test electroencephalography (EEG) paradigm, this study asked whether infants can segment repeated target words embedded in songs during familiarization and subsequently recognize those words in continuous speech in the test phase. To replicate previous speech work and compare segmentation across modalities, infants participated in both song and speech sessions. Results showed a positive event-related potential (ERP) familiarity effect to the final compared to the first target occurrences during both song and speech familiarization. No evidence was found for word recognition in the test phase following either song or speech. Comparisons across the stimuli of the present and a comparable previous study suggested that acoustic prominence and speech rate may have contributed to the polarity of the ERP familiarity effect and its absence in the test phase. Overall, the present study provides evidence that 10-month-old infants can segment words embedded in songs, and it raises questions about the acoustic and other factors that enable or hinder infant word segmentation from songs and speech.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tineke M. Snijders
- Language Development Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 6500 Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, 6500 Nijmegen, The Netherlands;
| | - Titia Benders
- Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, North Ryde 2109, Australia
| | - Paula Fikkert
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, 6500 Nijmegen, The Netherlands;
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, 6500 Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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