Event-related brain potentials to change in the frequency and temporal structure of sounds in typically developing 5-6-year-old children.
The brain's ability to recognize different acoustic cues (e.g., frequency changes in rapid temporal succession) is important for speech perception and thus for successful language development. Here we report on distinct event-related potentials (ERPs) in 5-6-year-old children recorded in a passive oddball paradigm to repeated tone pair stimuli with a frequency change in the second tone in the pair, replicating earlier findings. An occasional insertion of a third tone within the tone pair generated a more merged pattern, which has not been reported previously in 5-6-year-old children. Both types of deviations elicited pre-attentive discriminative mismatch negativity (MMN) and late discriminative negativity (LDN) responses. Temporal principal component analysis (tPCA) showed a similar topographical pattern with fronto-central negativity for MMN and LDN. We also found a previously unreported discriminative response complex (P340-N440) at the temporal electrode sites at about 140 ms and 240 ms after the frequency deviance, which we suggest reflects a discriminative processing of frequency change. The P340 response was positive with a clear radial distribution preceding the fronto-central frequency MMN by about 30 ms. The results indicate that 5-6-year-old children can detect frequency change and the occasional insertion of an additional tone in sound pairs as reflected by MMN and LDN, even with quite short within-stimulus intervals (150 ms and 50 ms). Furthermore, MMN for these changes is preceded by another response to deviancy, temporal P340, which seems to reflect a parallel but earlier discriminatory process.
Logopedics and Child Language Research Center, Faculty of Humanities, P.O. Box 1000, 90014, University of Oulu, Finland; Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, Neurocognitive Unit, Oulu University Hospital, P.O. Box 50, 90029, Oulu University Hospital, Finland. Electronic address: leena.ervast@oulu.fi.
Leena
L
Ervast
Department of Psychology, P.O. Box 35, 40014, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
Jarmo A
JA
Hämäläinen
Logopedics and Child Language Research Center, Faculty of Humanities, P.O. Box 1000, 90014, University of Oulu, Finland; Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, Neurocognitive Unit, Oulu University Hospital, P.O. Box 50, 90029, Oulu University Hospital, Finland.
Swantje
S
Zachau
Department of Psychology, P.O. Box 35, 40014, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
Kaisa
K
Lohvansuu
Logopedics and Child Language Research Center, Faculty of Humanities, P.O. Box 1000, 90014, University of Oulu, Finland; Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, Neurocognitive Unit, Oulu University Hospital, P.O. Box 50, 90029, Oulu University Hospital, Finland.
Kaisu
K
Heinänen
Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, Neurocognitive Unit, Oulu University Hospital, P.O. Box 50, 90029, Oulu University Hospital, Finland; Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Oulu University Hospital, P.O. Box 21, 90029, Oulu University Hospital, Finland.
Mari
M
Veijola
Logopedics and Child Language Research Center, Faculty of Humanities, P.O. Box 1000, 90014, University of Oulu, Finland; Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, Neurocognitive Unit, Oulu University Hospital, P.O. Box 50, 90029, Oulu University Hospital, Finland.
Elisa
E
Heikkinen
Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, Neurocognitive Unit, Oulu University Hospital, P.O. Box 50, 90029, Oulu University Hospital, Finland.
Kalervo
K
Suominen
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Oulu University Hospital, P.O. Box 21, 90029, Oulu University Hospital, Finland.
Mirja
M
Luotonen
Logopedics and Child Language Research Center, Faculty of Humanities, P.O. Box 1000, 90014, University of Oulu, Finland.
Matti
M
Lehtihalmes
Department of Psychology, P.O. Box 35, 40014, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
Paavo H T
PH
Leppänen
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003265:Contingent Negative Variation / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013016:Sound
Auditory processing; EEG; Late discriminative negativity (LDN); Mismatch negativity (MMN); N250; T-complex