Brain and Language最新文献

Visual information from a speaker’s face enhances auditory neural processing and speech recognition. To determine whether auditory memory can be influenced by visual speech, the degree of auditory neural adaptation of an auditory syllable preceded by an auditory, visual, or audiovisual syllable was examined using EEG. Consistent with previous findings and additional adaptation of auditory neurons tuned to acoustic features, stronger adaptation of N1, P2 and N2 auditory evoked responses was observed when the auditory syllable was preceded by an auditory compared to a visual syllable. However, although stronger than when preceded by a visual syllable, lower adaptation was observed when the auditory syllable was preceded by an audiovisual compared to an auditory syllable. In addition, longer N1 and P2 latencies were then observed. These results further demonstrate that visual speech acts on auditory memory but suggest competing visual influences in the case of audiovisual stimulation.

Based on the idea that neural entrainment establishes regular attentional fluctuations that facilitate hierarchical processing in both music and language, we hypothesized that individual differences in syntactic (grammatical) skills will be partly explained by patterns of neural responses to musical rhythm. To test this hypothesis, we recorded neural activity using electroencephalography (EEG) while children (N = 25) listened passively to rhythmic patterns that induced different beat percepts. Analysis of evoked beta and gamma activity revealed that individual differences in the magnitude of neural responses to rhythm explained variance in six-year-olds’ expressive grammar abilities, beyond and complementarily to their performance in a behavioral rhythm perception task. These results reinforce the idea that mechanisms of neural beat entrainment may be a shared neural resource supporting hierarchical processing across music and language and suggest a relevant marker of the relationship between rhythm processing and grammar abilities in elementary-school-age children, previously observed only behaviorally.

Studies on the efficacy of language treatment for multilingual people with post-stroke aphasia and its generalization to untreated languages have produced mixed results. We conducted a systematic review and a meta-analysis to examine within- and cross-language treatment effects and the variables that affect them. We searched PubMed, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and Google Scholar (February 2020; January 2023), identifying 40 studies reporting on 1573 effect sizes from 85 individuals. We synthesized effect sizes for treatment outcomes using a multi-level model to correct for multiple observations from the same individuals. The results showed significant treatment effects, with robust within-language treatment effects and weaker cross-language treatment effects. Age of language acquisition of the treatment language predicted within-language and cross-language effects. Our results suggest that treating multilingual people with aphasia in one language may generalize to their other languages, especially following treatment in an early-acquired language and a later-learned language that became the language of immersion.

Meta-analyses on reading show cerebellar activation in adults, but not children, suggesting a possible age-dependent role of the cerebellum in reading. However, the few studies that compare adults and children during reading report mixed cerebellar activation results. Here, we studied (i) cerebellar activation during implicit word processing in adults and children and (ii) functional connectivity (FC) between the cerebellum and left cortical regions involved in reading. First, both groups activated bilateral cerebellum for word processing when compared to fixation, but not when compared to the active control. There were no differences between adults and children. Second, we found intrinsic FC between several cerebellar seed regions and cortical target regions in adults and children, as well as between-group differences. However, task-modulated FC specific to word processing revealed no within- nor between-group results. Together this study does not provide support for a role of the cerebellum in word processing at either age.

The perception of multiple-speaker speech is challenging. People with music training generally show more robust and faster tone perception. The present study investigated whether music training experience can facilitate tonal-language speakers to accommodate speech variability in lexical tones. Native Cantonese musicians and nonmusicians were asked to identify Cantonese level tones from multiple speakers. Two groups were equally well in using context cues to normalize lexical tone variability at behavioral level. However, the advantage of music training was observed at cortical level. The time-domain ERP analysis suggested that musicians normalized lexical tone variability much earlier than nonmusicians (N1: 70–175 ms vs. P2: 175–280 ms). An exploratory source analysis further revealed that two groups probably relied on different cortical regions to normalize lexical tones. Left BA41 showed stronger involvement in musicians in accommodating tone variability, but right auditory cortex (including BA 41, 42 and 22) activated to a greater extend in nonmusicians.