Categorical processing of german vowel quantity

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Categorical processing of german vowel quantity Fabian Tomaschek1*, Hubert2 Truckenbrodt2 and Ingo Hertrich1 1 Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Reseach, Germany 2 ZAS, Germany The present study investigates the neural and behavioral processing of duration in the German Vowel /a/ using synthesized disyllabic nonsense words with different vowel durations. The vowel /a/ was chosen since its long and short cognates are differentiated in German merely on the basis of vowel duration, unlike high and mid vowels that have additional differences in formant structure. By means of an identification test a sharp category border was found at 105.9ms in the duration continuum from short to long category, associated with a local peak in response time. Furthermore, an adaptive discrimination test, applied to the entire continuum, showed a minimum of the just-noticeable-difference for vowel duration at the category border. In an MEG study, the continuum of the disyllabic words was presented in randomized order. Besides two M50-M100 complexes in response to the first and the second syllable, the ERP data showed a secondary M50/M100-like deflection in case vowel duration exceeded the duration of the short category, which was not observed in a duration-matched non-speech control condition. Furthermore, the amplitude strength of the M50 to the second syllable (M50-S2) in the speech stimulus was attenuated for prototypical vowel durations, but enhanced for ambiguous durations. In contrast to non-speech durations, the behavioral and neural data indicate a strong impact of phonological vowel categories on auditory processing in speech. The secondary positive/negative deflection might be interpreted as an additional phonological "event" or "slot", indicating a nonlinear categorical difference in the processing across short and long vowels. The attenuation and enhancement of the M50-S2 seem to reflect a phonological expectation for prototypical vowel duration. Keywords: Language, Vowel duration Conference: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI), Palma, Mallorca, Spain, 25 Sep - 29 Sep, 2011. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Poster Sessions: Neural Bases of Language Citation: Tomaschek F, Truckenbrodt H and Hertrich I (2011). Categorical processing of german vowel quantity. Conference Abstract: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2011.207.00199 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 21 Nov 2011; Published Online: 28 Nov 2011. * Correspondence: Dr. Fabian Tomaschek, Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Reseach, Tübingen, Germany, fabian.tomaschek@uni-tuebingen.de Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Fabian Tomaschek Hubert2 Truckenbrodt Ingo Hertrich Google Fabian Tomaschek Hubert2 Truckenbrodt Ingo Hertrich Google Scholar Fabian Tomaschek Hubert2 Truckenbrodt Ingo Hertrich PubMed Fabian Tomaschek Hubert2 Truckenbrodt Ingo Hertrich Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.