title: Neural measures of a Japanese consonant length discrimination by Japanese and American English listeners: Effects of attention.
abstract: This study examined automaticity of discrimination of a Japanese length contrast for consonants (miʃi vs. miʃʃi) in native (Japanese) and non-native (American-English) listeners using behavioral measures and the event-related potential (ERP) mismatch negativity (MMN). Attention to the auditory input was manipulated either away from the auditory input via a visual oddball task (Visual Attend), or to the input by asking the listeners to count auditory deviants (Auditory Attend). Results showed a larger MMN when attention was focused on the consonant contrast than away from it for both groups. The MMN was larger for consonant duration increments than decrements. No difference in MMN between the language groups was observed, but the Japanese listeners did show better behavioral discrimination than the American English listeners. In addition, behavioral responses showed a weak, but significant correlation with MMN amplitude. These findings suggest that both acoustic-phonetic properties and phonological experience affects automaticity of speech processing. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled SI: Prediction and Attention.
authors.affiliation: The City University of New York - Graduate School and University Center, PhD. Program in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016-4309, USA. Electronic address: miwako.hisagi@uconn.edu.
authors.forename: Miwako
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hisagi
authors.affiliation: The City University of New York - Graduate School and University Center, PhD. Program in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016-4309, USA.
authors.forename: Valerie L
authors.initials: VL
authors.lastname: Shafer
authors.affiliation: The City University of New York - Graduate School and University Center, PhD. Program in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016-4309, USA.
authors.forename: Winifred
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Strange
authors.affiliation: The City University of New York - Graduate School and University Center, PhD. Program in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016-4309, USA; Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience, 1410 Pelham Parkway S, Bronx, NY 10461, USA.
authors.forename: Elyse S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Sussman
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D010700:Phonetics; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014481:United States; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology
keywords: Attention; Consonants; Cross-linguistic; Japanese temporal-cues; Mismatch Negativity (MMN); Speech perception