title: Brain responses reveal hardwired detection of native-language rule violations.
abstract: Mismatch negativity (MMN) is a neural correlate of the preattentive detection of any change in the acoustic characteristics of sounds. Here we provide evidence that violations of a purely phonological constraint in a listener's native language can also elicit the brain's automatic change-detection response. The MMN differed between Finnish and Estonian listeners, conditions being equal except for the native language of the listeners. We used two experimental conditions: synthetic vowels in isolation and the same vowels embedded in a pseudo-word context. MMN responses to isolated vowels were similar for Finns and Estonians, while the same vowels in a pseudoword context elicited different MMN patterns depending on the listener's mother tongue.
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Olli
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Aaltonen
authors.forename: Ake
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hellström
authors.forename: Maija S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Peltola
authors.forename: Janne
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Savela
authors.forename: Henna
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tamminen
authors.forename: Heidi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lehtola
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D003265:Contingent Negative Variation / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult