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Biolinguistic Investigations on the Language Faculty
Edited by Anna Maria Di Sciullo
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 235] 2016
► pp. 79–100

Electroencephalographic evidence of vowels computation and representation in human auditory cortex

| Centro di Ricerca Interdisciplinare sul Linguaggio (CRIL) x University of Salento, Lecce, ItalyDepartment of Human Movement, Social and Health Sciences, University of Rome “Foro Italico”, Rome, ItalyIRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome Italy
| Centro di Ricerca Interdisciplinare sul Linguaggio (CRIL) x University of Salento, Lecce, ItalyDepartment of Human Movement, Social and Health Sciences, University of Rome “Foro Italico”, Rome, ItalyIRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome Italy
| Centro di Ricerca Interdisciplinare sul Linguaggio (CRIL) x University of Salento, Lecce, ItalyDepartment of Human Movement, Social and Health Sciences, University of Rome “Foro Italico”, Rome, ItalyIRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome Italy

By exploiting the N1 component of the auditory event related potentials we aimed to measure and localize the processing involving the spectro-temporal and the abstract featural representation. We investigated the electroencephalography patterns of 11 Salento Italian speakers discriminating their native five stressed vowels [i, ε, a, ɔ, u]. Findings showed two distinct N1 sub-components: the N1a peaking at 125–135 ms, localized in the bilateral primary auditory cortex (BA41), and the N1b peaking at 145–155 ms, localized in the superior temporal gyrus (BA22) with a strong leftward lateralization. Crucially, while high vowels elicited higher amplitudes than non-high vowels both in the N1a and N1b, back vowels generated later responses than non-back vowels in the N1b only. Overall, these findings suggest a hierarchical processing where from the N1a to the N1b the acoustic analysis shift progressively toward the computation and representation of phonological features.

Published online: 24 November 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.235.04gri
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