Neural oscillations underlying perceptual grouping in the auditory domain

Recent neurophysiological studies using the so-called frequency tagging methodology have shown that the human brain is able to track the grammatical structure of spoken sentences even if low-level acoustic (intonational) cues marking phrase boundaries are removed from the speech signal. These results opened a window towards naturalistic investigation of grammar processing and learning. However, currently it remains unclear to which extent the findings in the original studies have been influenced by the processing of covert (i.e., imagined by participants) intonation. Testing the relative role of intonational and grammatical processing on the neurophysiological correlates of sentence processing in frequency tagging experiments is the main aim of the present project. We have collected data from over 40 healthy adults. Having confirmed the prominent role of intonational processing in frequency tagging sentence processing studies, we now are performing advanced statistical analyses to develop a reliable algorithm for testing language learning in naturalistic settings.

Faculty Supervisor:

Karsten Steinhauer

Student:

Partner:

Max-Planck-Institut für empirische Ästhetik

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Education

University:

McGill University

Program: