title: Neural processing of acoustic duration and phonological German vowel length: time courses of evoked fields in response to speech and nonspeech signals.
abstract: Recent experiments showed that the perception of vowel length by German listeners exhibits the characteristics of categorical perception. The present study sought to find the neural activity reflecting categorical vowel length and the short-long boundary by examining the processing of non-contrastive durations and categorical length using MEG. Using disyllabic words with varying /a/-durations and temporally-matched nonspeech stimuli, we found that each syllable elicited an M50/M100-complex. The M50-amplitude to the second syllable varied along the durational continuum, possibly reflecting the mapping of duration onto a rhythm representation. Categorical length was reflected by an additional response elicited when vowel duration exceeded the short-long boundary. This was interpreted to reflect the integration of an additional timing unit for long in contrast to short vowels. Unlike to speech, responses to short nonspeech durations lacked a M100 to the first and M50 to the second syllable, indicating different integration windows for speech and nonspeech signals.
authors: Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, Department of General Neurology, University of Tuebingen, Hoppe-Seyler-Straße 3, 72076 Tübingen, Germany. fabian.tomaschek@uni-tuebingen.de
authors: Fabian
authors: F
authors: Tomaschek
authors: Hubert
authors: H
authors: Truckenbrodt
authors: Ingo
authors: I
authors: Hertrich
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001303:Auditory Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D015225:Magnetoencephalography; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D014825:Vocabulary; D055815:Young Adult