scholarly journals Orthogonal neural codes for phonetic features in the infant brain

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Gennari ◽  
Sebastien Marti ◽  
Marie Palu ◽  
Ana Flo ◽  
Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz
Keyword(s):  
First Year ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Neural Codes ◽  
Place Of Articulation ◽  
Rapid Pace ◽  
Phonetic Features ◽  
Low Dimensional ◽  
Multivariate Pattern ◽  
Two Stages ◽  
Preverbal Infants

Creating invariant representations from an ever-changing speech signal is a major challenge for the human brain. Such an ability is particularly crucial for preverbal infants who must discover the phonological, lexical and syntactic regularities of an extremely inconsistent signal in order to acquire language. Within visual perception, an efficient neural solution to overcome signal variability consists in factorizing the input into orthogonal and relevant low-dimensional components. In this study we asked whether a similar neural strategy grounded on phonetic features is recruited in speech perception. Using a 256-channel electroencephalographic system, we recorded the neural responses of 3-month-old infants to 120 natural consonant-vowel syllables with varying acoustic and phonetic profiles. To characterize the specificity and granularity of the elicited representations, we employed a hierarchical generalization approach based on multivariate pattern analyses. We identified two stages of processing. At first, the features of manner and place of articulation were decodable as stable and independent dimensions of neural responsivity. Subsequently, phonetic features were integrated into phoneme-identity (i.e. consonant) neural codes. The latter remained distinct from the representation of the vowel, accounting for the different weights attributed to consonants and vowels in lexical and syntactic computations. This study reveals that, despite the paucity of articulatory motor plans and productive skills, the preverbal brain is already equipped with a structured phonetic space which provides a combinatorial code for speech analysis. The early availability of a stable and orthogonal neural code for phonetic features might account for the rapid pace of language acquisition during the first year.

scholarly journals Orthogonal neural codes for speech in the infant brain

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (31) ◽  
pp. e2020410118
Author(s):  
Giulia Gennari ◽  
Sébastien Marti ◽  
Marie Palu ◽  
Ana Fló ◽  
Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz
Keyword(s):  
First Year ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Neural Codes ◽  
Place Of Articulation ◽  
Orthogonal Components ◽  
Rapid Pace ◽  
Multivariate Pattern ◽  
Two Stages ◽  
Visual Domain ◽  
Preverbal Infants

Creating invariant representations from an everchanging speech signal is a major challenge for the human brain. Such an ability is particularly crucial for preverbal infants who must discover the phonological, lexical, and syntactic regularities of an extremely inconsistent signal in order to acquire language. Within the visual domain, an efficient neural solution to overcome variability consists in factorizing the input into a reduced set of orthogonal components. Here, we asked whether a similar decomposition strategy is used in early speech perception. Using a 256-channel electroencephalographic system, we recorded the neural responses of 3-mo-old infants to 120 natural consonant–vowel syllables with varying acoustic and phonetic profiles. Using multivariate pattern analyses, we show that syllables are factorized into distinct and orthogonal neural codes for consonants and vowels. Concerning consonants, we further demonstrate the existence of two stages of processing. A first phase is characterized by orthogonal and context-invariant neural codes for the dimensions of manner and place of articulation. Within the second stage, manner and place codes are integrated to recover the identity of the phoneme. We conclude that, despite the paucity of articulatory motor plans and speech production skills, pre-babbling infants are already equipped with a structured combinatorial code for speech analysis, which might account for the rapid pace of language acquisition during the first year.

scholarly journals Neighborhood racial demographics predict infants’ neural responses to people of different races

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyesung Grace Hwang ◽  
Ranjan Debnath ◽  
Marlene Meyer ◽  
Virginia C. Salo ◽  
Nathan Fox ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
First Year ◽  
Mu Rhythm ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Racially Diverse ◽  
Social Bias ◽  
Alpha Asymmetry ◽  
First Year Of Life ◽  
Preverbal Infants ◽  
Racial Demographics

Early in life, greater exposure to diverse people can change the tendency to prefer one’s own social group. For instance, infants from racially diverse environments show less preference for their own-race (ingroup) over other-race (outgroup) faces than infants from racially homogeneous environments. Yet how social environment changes ingroup versus outgroup demarcation in infancy is unclear. A commonly held assumption is that early emerging ingroup preference is based on an affective process: feeling more comfortable with familiar ingroup than unfamiliar outgroup members. However, other processes may also underlie ingroup preference: Infants may attend more to ingroup than outgroup members and/or mirror the actions of ingroup over outgroup individuals. By aggregating 7- to 12-month-old infants’ electroencephalography (EEG) activity across three studies, we disambiguate these different processes in the EEG oscillations of preverbal infants according to social environment. White infants from more racially diverse neighborhoods exhibited greater frontal theta oscillation (an index of top-down attention) and more mu rhythm desynchronization (an index of motor system activation and potentially neural mirroring) to racial outgroup individuals than White infants from less racially diverse neighborhoods. Neighborhood racial demographics did not relate to White infants’ frontal alpha asymmetry (a measure of approach-withdrawal motivation) toward racial outgroup individuals. Racial minority infants showed no effects of neighborhood racial demographics in their neural responses to racial outgroup individuals. These results indicate that neural mechanisms that may underlie social bias and prejudices are related to neighborhood racial demographics in the first year of life.

Effects of Gender, Parental Role, and Time on Infant- and Adult-Directed Read and Spontaneous Speech

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (11) ◽  
pp. 4001-4014
Author(s):  
Melanie Weirich ◽  
Adrian Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Parental Involvement ◽  
Gender Identity ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
First Year ◽  
Space Size ◽  
Vowel Space ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
Phonetic Features ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Description Task

Purpose The study sets out to investigate inter- and intraspeaker variation in German infant-directed speech (IDS) and considers the potential impact that the factors gender, parental involvement, and speech material (read vs. spontaneous speech) may have. In addition, we analyze data from 3 time points prior to and after the birth of the child to examine potential changes in the features of IDS and, particularly also, of adult-directed speech (ADS). Here, the gender identity of a speaker is considered as an additional factor. Method IDS and ADS data from 34 participants (15 mothers, 19 fathers) is gathered by means of a reading and a picture description task. For IDS, 2 recordings were made when the baby was approximately 6 and 9 months old, respectively. For ADS, an additional recording was made before the baby was born. Phonetic analyses comprise mean fundamental frequency (f0), variation in f0, the 1st 2 formants measured in /i: ɛ a u:/, and the vowel space size. Moreover, social and behavioral data were gathered regarding parental involvement and gender identity. Results German IDS is characterized by an increase in mean f0, a larger variation in f0, vowel- and formant-specific differences, and a larger acoustic vowel space. No effect of gender or parental involvement was found. Also, the phonetic features of IDS were found in both spontaneous and read speech. Regarding ADS, changes in vowel space size in some of the fathers and in mean f0 in mothers were found. Conclusion Phonetic features of German IDS are robust with respect to the factors gender, parental involvement, speech material (read vs. spontaneous speech), and time. Some phonetic features of ADS changed within the child's first year depending on gender and parental involvement/gender identity. Thus, further research on IDS needs to address also potential changes in ADS.

The Implementation of Biological Phosphorus and Nitrogen Removal with the Bio-Denipho Process on a 265,000 PE Treatment Plant

1992 ◽  
Vol 25 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 161-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Einfeldt
Keyword(s):  
Nitrogen Removal ◽  
Treatment Plant ◽  
First Year ◽  
In Series ◽  
Design Loads ◽  
Last Stage ◽  
Two Stages ◽  
The City ◽  
Biological Phosphorus

A process, called Bio-Denipho, for combined biological phosphorus and nitrogen removal in a combination of an anaerobic tank and two oxidation ditches is described. In this process the anaerobic tank consisting of three sections working in series is followed by two oxidation ditches. These too are working in series, but with both inlet to and outlet from the tanks changing in a cycle. The Bio-Denipho process is described specifically for the process itself and as a case study for the implementation of the process on a 265,000 pe wastewater treatment plant for the city of Aalborg in Denmark. The plant was designed and erected in two stages and the last stage was inaugurated October 31,1989. Lay-out and functions for the plant is described and design loads, plan lay-out and tank volumes are given in this paper together with performance data for the first year in operation.

scholarly journals Latent neural dynamics encode temporal context in speech

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Patricia Stephen ◽  
Yuanning Li ◽  
Sean Metzger ◽  
Yulia Oganian ◽  
Edward F Chang
Keyword(s):  
Silent Period ◽  
Superior Temporal Gyrus ◽  
Temporal Context ◽  
Reduced Rank Regression ◽  
Rank Regression ◽  
Neural Recordings ◽  
Word Level ◽  
Spatially Distributed ◽  
Phonetic Features ◽  
Low Dimensional

Direct neural recordings from human auditory cortex have demonstrated encoding for acoustic-phonetic features of consonants and vowels. Neural responses also encode distinct acoustic amplitude cues related to timing, such as those that occur at the onset of a sentence after a silent period or the onset of the vowel in each syllable. Here, we used a group reduced rank regression model to show that distributed cortical responses support a low-dimensional latent state representation of temporal context in speech. The timing cues each capture more unique variance than all other phonetic features and exhibit rotational or cyclical dynamics in latent space from activity that is widespread over the superior temporal gyrus. We propose that these spatially distributed timing signals could serve to provide temporal context for, and possibly bind across time, the concurrent processing of individual phonetic features, to compose higher-order phonological (e.g. word-level) representations.

FACE REPRESENTATION WITH GRADIENT ORIENTATIONS AND EULER MAPPING: APPLICATION TO FACE RECOGNITION

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (08) ◽  
pp. 1456014 ◽  
Author(s):  
ZHAOKUI LI ◽  
LIXIN DING ◽  
YAN WANG ◽  
JINRONG HE
Keyword(s):  
Face Recognition ◽  
Imaginary Part ◽  
Feature Vector ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Subspace Learning ◽  
The Real ◽  
Face Representation ◽  
Central Pixel ◽  
Low Dimensional ◽  
Two Stages

This paper proposes a simple, yet very powerful local face representation, called the Gradient Orientations and Euler Mapping (GOEM). GOEM consists of two stages: gradient orientations and Euler mapping. In the first stage, we calculate gradient orientations of a central pixel and get the corresponding orientation representations by performing convolution operator. These representation results display spatial locality and orientation properties. To encompass different spatial localities and orientations, we concatenate all these representation results and derive a concatenated orientation feature vector. In the second stage, we define an explicit Euler mapping which maps the space of the concatenated orientation into a complex space. For a mapping image, we find that the imaginary part and the real part characterize the high frequency and the low frequency components, respectively. To encompass different frequencies, we concatenate the imaginary part and the real part and derive a concatenated mapping feature vector. For a given image, we use the two stages to construct a GOEM image and derive an augmented feature vector which resides in a space of very high dimensionality. In order to derive low-dimensional feature vector, we present a class of GOEM-based kernel subspace learning methods for face recognition. These methods, which are robust to changes in occlusion and illumination, apply the kernel subspace learning model with explicit Euler mapping to an augmented feature vector derived from the GOEM representation of face images. Experimental results show that our methods significantly outperform popular methods and achieve state-of-the-art performance for difficult problems such as illumination and occlusion-robust face recognition.

scholarly journals CLASSIFICATION OF COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES SOCIAL ENGINEERING IN THE NEWSPAPERS OF THE REICHSCOMISARIAT "UKRAINE" (FROM SEPTEMBER, 1, 1941 FOR JULY, 17, 1942)

2019 ◽  
pp. 329-348
Author(s):  
А. М. Kholod
Keyword(s):  
Social Engineering ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
New Order ◽  
First Year ◽  
The Social ◽  
Two Stages

In the article an author formulates an aim: to describe and classify of communication technologies of the social engineering in the newspapers of Reichscommissariat "Ukraine" (RCU) in a period from September, 1, 1941 to July, 17, 1942. On results research: 1) it is set that more active than all in the newspapers of (RCU) on the first year his existence technologies of the first stage of the social engineering (namely are authentications) were used; 2) actively enough the authors of journalistic materials called to of communication technologies that declared "diffuse" character of confluence of two stages of the social engineering, namely are authentications and designs; 3) the no active enough (only in 9%) journalists of fascist newspapers of (RCU) called to of communication technologies of the stage of design of reality. Conclusions: the authors of journalistic materials did not aim to design future reality of "new order" of "Greatgermanium", and also did not have sufficient journalistic preparation and experience for realization Goebels and Hitler intentions.

scholarly journals Features of the Development of Auditory and Pronunciation Skills in Online German Classes

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Olena H. Vasylchenko
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Distance Learning ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
First Year ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
National University ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Video And Audio ◽  
Two Stages

The relevance of the research is determined by the need to find new methods of teaching a foreign language in the context of the transition to an online learning environment, which will contribute to ensuring an appropriate level of development of future specialists' communicative foreign competence. The purpose of the study is to determine the features of the development of students' phonetic competence in online German classes on the example of the pedagogical activity of teachers of the I.I. Mechnikov Odessa National University. The study of the selected problems was carried out in two stages based on logical and system approaches using general scientific methods, including the method of analysis, synthesis, comparison, concretisation, systematisation, and the method of analogies. It was identified that the modern educational space is characterised by the digitalisation of the educational process, as a result of which approaches to teaching a foreign language are changing. The paper considers foreign practices of using multimedia technologies in foreign language classes to form students' auditory and pronunciation skills in online learning. The necessity of changing the conventional methods of teaching an introductory phonetic course in a foreign language according to the requirements of distance learning was substantiated. It was established that the key factor in the development of auditory and pronunciation skills in online German classes is the use of video and audio materials (video conferences and messengers), animated images of articulation of sounds, as well as a system of exercises for the practical application of the theoretical knowledge obtained. On the example of teaching an introductory phonetic course in German for first-year students of the Department of International Relations of the I.I. Mechnikov Odessa National University, the basic principles of using mobile applications in the process of distance learning, including Padlet, LearningApps, Voki, PicVoice, and ChatterPix are described. The prospects for further research lie in the practice of using the online environment of an introductory German phonetic course among students of related specialisations

scholarly journals Cross-modal and non-monotonic representations of statistical regularity are encoded in local neural response patterns

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel A. Nastase ◽  
Ben Davis ◽  
Uri Hasson
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Modality ◽  
Theoretical Development ◽  
Response Patterns ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Input Uncertainty ◽  
Environmental Statistics ◽  
Statistical Regularities ◽  
Cross Classification ◽  
Multivariate Pattern ◽  
Predictive Processes

AbstractCurrent neurobiological models assign a central role to predictive processes calibrated to environmental statistics. Neuroimaging studies examining the encoding of stimulus uncertainty have relied almost exclusively on manipulations in which stimuli were presented in a single sensory modality, and further assumed that neural responses vary monotonically with uncertainty. This has left a gap in theoretical development with respect to two core issues: i) are there cross-modal brain systems that encode input uncertainty in way that generalizes across sensory modalities, and ii) are there brain systems that track input uncertainty in a non-monotonic fashion? We used multivariate pattern analysis to address these two issues using auditory, visual and audiovisual inputs. We found signatures of cross-modal encoding in frontoparietal, orbitofrontal, and association cortices using a searchlight cross-classification analysis where classifiers trained to discriminate levels of uncertainty in one modality were tested in another modality. Additionally, we found widespread systems encoding uncertainty non-monotonically using classifiers trained to discriminate intermediate levels of uncertainty from both the highest and lowest uncertainty levels. These findings comprise the first comprehensive report of cross-modal and non-monotonic neural sensitivity to statistical regularities in the environment, and suggest that conventional paradigms testing for monotonic responses to uncertainty in a single sensory modality may have limited generalizability.

scholarly journals Shared neural codes for eye-gaze and valence

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raviv Pryluk ◽  
Yosef Shohat ◽  
Anna Morozov ◽  
Dafna Friedman ◽  
Aryeh H. Taub ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Appetitive Conditioning ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Neural Codes ◽  
Direct Gaze ◽  
Shared Activity ◽  
Correlated Activity ◽  
The Social

AbstractThe eye-gaze of others is a prominent social cue in primates and crucial for communication1-7, and atypical processing occurs in several conditions as autism-spectrum-disorder (ASD)1,9-14. The neural mechanisms that underlie eye-gaze remain vague, and it is still debated if these computations developed in dedicated neural circuits or shared with non-social elements. In many species, eye-gaze signals a threat and elicits anxiety, yet can also serve as a predictor for the outcome of the encounter: negative or positive2,4,8. Here, we hypothesized and find that neural codes overlap between eye-gaze and valence. Monkeys participated in a modified version of the human-intruder-test8,15 that includes direct and averted eye-gaze and interleaved with blocks of aversive and appetitive conditioning16,17. We find that single-neurons in the amygdala encode gaze18, whereas neurons in the anterior-cingulate-cortex encode the social context19,20 but not gaze. We identify a shared amygdala circuitry where neural responses to averted and direct gaze parallel the responses to appetitive and aversive value, correspondingly. Importantly, we distinguish two shared coding mechanisms: a shared-intensity scheme that is used for gaze and the unconditioned-stimulus, and a shared-activity scheme that is used for gaze and the conditioned-stimulus. The shared-intensity points to overlap in circuitry, whereas the shared-activity requires also correlated activity. Our results demonstrate that eye-gaze is coded as a signal of valence, yet also as the expected value of the interaction. The findings may suggest new insights into the mechanisms that underlie the malfunction of eye-gaze in ASD and the comorbidity with impaired social skills and anxiety.

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