Automatic sound encoding is sensitive to language familiarity: Evidence from English monolinguals and Spanish-English bilinguals

Abstract

We investigated whether language familiarity has a modulatory effect on automatic sound encoding in the auditory brainstem by measuring frequency-following responses (FFRs) to repeating speech syllables that played in the background while monolingual English speakers and Spanish-English bilingual speakers watched cartoon videos in English and Spanish. For the English monolinguals, we found that the FFR signal quality was different between the two language conditions, with higher signal to noise ratios emerging for the Spanish compared to the English condition. For the Spanish-English bilinguals, the FFR signal quality was overall higher than the monolinguals, but there no effect of language condition on the FFR. Thus, both language familiarity of the environment and bilingual language experience, may modulate automatic sound encoding.