scholarly journals The processing of intimately familiar and unfamiliar voices: Specific neural responses of speaker recognition and identification

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. e0250214
Author(s):  
Julien Plante-Hébert ◽  
Victor J. Boucher ◽  
Boutheina Jemel
Keyword(s):  
Speaker Recognition ◽  
Time Window ◽  
Speaker Identification ◽  
Early Recognition ◽  
Voice Recognition ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Post Onset

Research has repeatedly shown that familiar and unfamiliar voices elicit different neural responses. But it has also been suggested that different neural correlates associate with the feeling of having heard a voice and knowing who the voice represents. The terminology used to designate these varying responses remains vague, creating a degree of confusion in the literature. Additionally, terms serving to designate tasks of voice discrimination, voice recognition, and speaker identification are often inconsistent creating further ambiguities. The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to clarify the difference between responses to 1) unknown voices, 2) trained-to-familiar voices as speech stimuli are repeatedly presented, and 3) intimately familiar voices. In an experiment, 13 participants listened to repeated utterances recorded from 12 speakers. Only one of the 12 voices was intimately familiar to a participant, whereas the remaining 11 voices were unfamiliar. The frequency of presentation of these 11 unfamiliar voices varied with only one being frequently presented (the trained-to-familiar voice). ERP analyses revealed different responses for intimately familiar and unfamiliar voices in two distinct time windows (P2 between 200–250 ms and a late positive component, LPC, between 450–850 ms post-onset) with late responses occurring only for intimately familiar voices. The LPC present sustained shifts, and short-time ERP components appear to reflect an early recognition stage. The trained voice equally elicited distinct responses, compared to rarely heard voices, but these occurred in a third time window (N250 between 300–350 ms post-onset). Overall, the timing of responses suggests that the processing of intimately familiar voices operates in two distinct steps of voice recognition, marked by a P2 on right centro-frontal sites, and speaker identification marked by an LPC component. The recognition of frequently heard voices entails an independent recognition process marked by a differential N250. Based on the present results and previous observations, it is proposed that there is a need to distinguish between processes of voice “recognition” and “identification”. The present study also specifies test conditions serving to reveal this distinction in neural responses, one of which bears on the length of speech stimuli given the late responses associated with voice identification.

Speech Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Integrative Review of Auditory Neurophysiology Findings

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Alexandra P. Key ◽  
Kathryn D'Ambrose Slaboch
Keyword(s):  
Task Complexity ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Communication Disorders ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Integrative Review ◽  
Speech Sounds ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Related Potentials

Purpose Investigations into the nature of communication disorders in autistic individuals increasingly evaluate neural responses to speech stimuli. This integrative review aimed to consolidate the available data related to speech and language processing across levels of stimulus complexity (from single speech sounds to sentences) and to relate it to the current theories of autism. Method An electronic database search identified peer-reviewed articles using event-related potentials or magnetoencephalography to investigate auditory processing from single speech sounds to sentences in autistic children and adults varying in language and cognitive abilities. Results Atypical neural responses in autistic persons became more prominent with increasing stimulus and task complexity. Compared with their typically developing peers, autistic individuals demonstrated mostly intact sensory responses to single speech sounds, diminished spontaneous attentional orienting to spoken stimuli, specific difficulties with categorical speech sound discrimination, and reduced processing of semantic content. Atypical neural responses were more often observed in younger autistic participants and in those with concomitant language disorders. Conclusions The observed differences in neural responses to speech stimuli suggest that communication difficulties in autistic individuals are more consistent with the reduced social interest than the auditory dysfunction explanation. Current limitations and future directions for research are also discussed.

scholarly journals Frequency Sensitivity of Neural Responses to English Verb Argument Structure Violations

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jona Sassenhagen ◽  
Ryan Blything ◽  
Elena V. M. Lieven ◽  
Ben Ambridge
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Learning ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Online Processing ◽  
Verb Argument Structure ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Intransitive Verbs

How are verb-argument structure preferences acquired? Children typically receive very little negative evidence, raising the question of how they come to understand the restrictions on grammatical constructions. Statistical learning theories propose stochastic patterns in the input contain sufficient clues. For example, if a verb is very common, but never observed in transitive constructions, this would indicate that transitive usage of that verb is illegal. Ambridge et al. (2008) have shown that in offline grammaticality judgements of intransitive verbs used in transitive constructions, low-frequency verbs elicit higher acceptability ratings than high-frequency verbs, as predicted if relative frequency is a cue during statistical learning. Here, we investigate if the same pattern also emerges in on-line processing of English sentences. EEG was recorded while healthy adults listened to sentences featuring transitive uses of semantically matched verb pairs of differing frequencies. We replicate the finding of higher acceptabilities of transitive uses of low- vs. high-frequency intransitive verbs. Event-Related Potentials indicate a similar result: early electrophysiological signals distinguish between misuse of high- vs low-frequency verbs. This indicates online processing shows a similar sensitivity to frequency as off-line judgements, consistent with a parser that reflects an original acquisition of grammatical constructions via statistical cues. However, the nature of the observed neural responses was not of the expected, or an easily interpretable, form, motivating further work into neural correlates of online processing of syntactic constructions.

Can Early Onset Schizophrenia be Prevented by Early Recognition and Treatment?

2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (S1) ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
F. Resch ◽  
P. Parzer ◽  
R. Oelkers-Ax ◽  
R. Brunner
Keyword(s):  
Late Onset ◽  
Early Recognition ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Subjective Experiences ◽  
Prodromal Phase ◽  
Basic Symptoms ◽  
Delayed Initiation ◽  
Adult Psychiatry ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Psychotic Features

In adult psychiatry early recognition and treatment of schizophrenia has become a major goal because of manifold evidence of a relation between delayed initiation of treatment and an unfavourable developmental course. The duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) seems to be significantly prolonged in adolescents compared to adults due to both a protracted sub-threshold development of psychotic features and the failure of families and health professionals to take seriously the initial signs of psychosis that mimic quasi normal adolescent emotional perturbations. Although in adults studies have shown a subset of prodromal signs and attenuated psychotic features to have predictive evidence for the development of schizophrenia, these symptoms however seem of limited specificity in adolescence. Basic symptoms represent subjective experiences of the prodromal phase and will be presented in a sample of schizophrenic adolescents in comparison to non-psychotic patients and normal controls. Results reveal that basic symptoms do not show any specificity for schizophrenia, but schizophrenics present with higher amounts of basic symptoms in the prodromal phase compared to non-psychotic controls. For early recognition a combination of psychopathological and biological markers seems fruitful. First data on perceptual closure and event related potentials of the optic system will be presented that seem to differentiate between early and late onset schizophrenia.

Phonetic Encoding Contributes to the Processing of Linguistic Prosody at the Word Level: Cross-Linguistic Evidence From Event-Related Potentials

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Luodi Yu ◽  
Jiajing Zeng ◽  
Suiping Wang ◽  
Yang Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Acoustic Cues ◽  
Prosodic Features ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Word Level ◽  
Acoustic Control ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Prosodic Phonology

Purpose This study aimed to examine whether abstract knowledge of word-level linguistic prosody is independent of or integrated with phonetic knowledge. Method Event-related potential (ERP) responses were measured from 18 adult listeners while they listened to native and nonnative word-level prosody in speech and in nonspeech. The prosodic phonology (speech) conditions included disyllabic pseudowords spoken in Chinese and in English matched for syllabic structure, duration, and intensity. The prosodic acoustic (nonspeech) conditions were hummed versions of the speech stimuli, which eliminated the phonetic content while preserving the acoustic prosodic features. Results We observed language-specific effects on the ERP that native stimuli elicited larger late negative response (LNR) amplitude than nonnative stimuli in the prosodic phonology conditions. However, no such effect was observed in the phoneme-free prosodic acoustic control conditions. Conclusions The results support the integration view that word-level linguistic prosody likely relies on the phonetic content where the acoustic cues embedded in. It remains to be examined whether the LNR may serve as a neural signature for language-specific processing of prosodic phonology beyond auditory processing of the critical acoustic cues at the suprasyllabic level.

ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF CONGRUENT AND INCONGRUENT STIMULUS IN STROOP TASK, USING EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS (ERP) IN PATIENTS WITH DEPRESSION

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (05) ◽  
pp. 1850034
Author(s):  
Yeganeh Shahsavar ◽  
Majid Ghoshuni
Keyword(s):  
Stroop Task ◽  
Time Window ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Peak Time ◽  
Eeg Signals ◽  
Incongruent Stimulus ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Recording Channel ◽  
The Mean ◽  
The Impact

The main goal of this event-related potentials (ERPs) study was to assess the effects of stimulations in Stroop task in brain activities of patients with different degrees of depression. Eighteen patients (10 males, with the mean age [Formula: see text]) were asked to fill out Beck’s depression questionnaire. Electroencephalographic (EEG) signals of subjects were recorded in three channels (Pz, Cz, and Fz) during Stroop test. This test entailed 360 stimulations, which included 120 congruent, 120 incongruent, and 120 neutral stimulations. To analyze the data, 18 time features in each type of stimulus were extracted from the ERP components and the optimal features were selected. The correlation between the subjects’ scores in Beck’s depression questionnaires and the extracted time features in each recording channel was calculated in order to select the best features. Total area, and peak-to-peak time window in the Cz channel in both the congruent and incongruent stimulus showed significant correlation with Beck scores, with [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], respectively. Consequently, given the correlation between time features and the subjects’ Beck scores with different degrees of depression, it can be interpreted that in case of growth in degrees of depression, stimulations involving congruent images would produce more challenging interferences for the patients compared to incongruent stimulations which can be more effective in diagnosing the level of disorder.

scholarly journals Lexical processing deficits in children with developmental language disorder: An event-related potentials study

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 459-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergey A. Kornilov ◽  
James S. Magnuson ◽  
Natalia Rakhlin ◽  
Nicole Landi ◽  
Elena L. Grigorenko
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Time Window ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Functional Independence ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Compensatory Mechanisms ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Processing Deficits

AbstractLexical processing deficits in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have been postulated to arise as sequelae of their grammatical deficits (either directly or via compensatory mechanisms) and vice versa. We examined event-related potential indices of lexical processing in children with DLD (n= 23) and their typically developing peers (n= 16) using a picture–word matching paradigm. We found that children with DLD showed markedly reduced N400 amplitudes in response both to auditorily presented words that had initial phonological overlap with the name of the pictured object and to words that were not semantically or phonologically related to the pictured object. Moreover, this reduction was related to behavioral indices of phonological and lexical but not grammatical development. We also found that children with DLD showed a depressed phonological mapping negativity component in the early time window, suggesting deficits in phonological processing or early lexical access. The results are partially consistent with the overactivation account of lexical processing deficits in DLD and point to the relative functional independence of lexical/phonological and grammatical deficits in DLD, supporting a multidimensional view of the disorder. The results also, although indirectly, support the neuroplasticity account of DLD, according to which language impairment affects brain development and shapes the specific patterns of brain responses to language stimuli.

scholarly journals Reduced influence of perceptual context in schizophrenia: behavioral and neurophysiological evidence

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor J. Pokorny ◽  
Timothy J. Lano ◽  
Michael-Paul Schallmo ◽  
Cheryl A. Olman ◽  
Scott R. Sponheim
Keyword(s):  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Contour Integration ◽  
Contour Detection ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Contour Perception ◽  
Accurate Perception ◽  
Visual Contour ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Intermediate Performance

Abstract Background Accurate perception of visual contours is essential for seeing and differentiating objects in the environment. Both the ability to detect visual contours and the influence of perceptual context created by surrounding stimuli are diminished in people with schizophrenia (SCZ). The central aim of the present study was to better understand the biological underpinnings of impaired contour integration and weakened effects of perceptual context. Additionally, we sought to determine whether visual perceptual abnormalities reflect genetic factors in SCZ and are present in other severe mental disorders. Methods We examined behavioral data and event-related potentials (ERPs) collected during the perception of simple linear contours embedded in similar background stimuli in 27 patients with SCZ, 23 patients with bipolar disorder (BP), 23 first-degree relatives of SCZ, and 37 controls. Results SCZ exhibited impaired visual contour detection while BP exhibited intermediate performance. The orientation of neighboring stimuli (i.e. flankers) relative to the contour modulated perception across all groups, but SCZ exhibited weakened suppression by the perceptual context created by flankers. Late visual (occipital P2) and cognitive (centroparietal P3) neural responses showed group differences and flanker orientation effects, unlike earlier ERPs (occipital P1 and N1). Moreover, behavioral effects of flanker context on contour perception were correlated with modulation in P2 & P3 amplitudes. Conclusion In addition to replicating and extending findings of abnormal contour integration and visual context modulation in SCZ, we provide novel evidence that the abnormal use of perceptual context is associated with higher-order sensory and cognitive processes.

scholarly journals Risk and Resilience in an Acute Stress Paradigm: Evidence From Salivary Cortisol and Time-Frequency Analysis of the Reward Positivity

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 872-889 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paige Ethridge ◽  
Nida Ali ◽  
Sarah E. Racine ◽  
Jens C. Pruessner ◽  
Anna Weinberg
Keyword(s):  
Frequency Band ◽  
Acute Stress ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Risk And Resilience ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Time Frequency ◽  
Reward Positivity ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Reward Responsivity

Both abnormal stress and reward responsivity are consistently linked to multiple forms of psychopathology; however, the nature of the associations between stress and reward sensitivity remains poorly understood. In the present study, we examined associations between the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-axis stress response and event-related potentials sensitive to the receipt of reward-related feedback in a pre–post experimental paradigm. Neural responses were recorded while male participants completed a simple monetary-reward guessing task before and after the Montreal Imaging Stress Task. Results demonstrated that acute psychosocial stress significantly reduced the magnitude of neural responses to feedback in the reward-sensitive delta-frequency band but not the loss-sensitive theta-frequency band. In addition, a larger delta-frequency response to rewards at baseline predicted reduced overall cortisol response in the stress condition. These findings suggest, therefore, that neural reward circuitry may be associated with both risk for and resilience to stress-related psychopathology.

The correlation between positive symptoms and left temporal event-related potentials in the P300 time window is auditory specific and training sensitive

2005 ◽  
Vol 78 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 117-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Bruno Debruille ◽  
Amelia Schneider-Schmid ◽  
Pamela Dann ◽  
Suzanne King ◽  
Marc Laporta ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Time Window ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Positive Symptoms ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
And Training

Event-related Potential Correlates of Negation in a Sentence–Picture Verification Paradigm

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 1355-1370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jana Lüdtke ◽  
Claudia K. Friedrich ◽  
Mónica De Filippis ◽  
Barbara Kaup
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Priming Effect ◽  
Time Window ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Foreground Object ◽  
Negative Particle ◽  
Sentence Meaning ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Main Effects

In a sentence–picture verification paradigm, participants were presented in a rapid-serial-visual-presentation paradigm with affirmative or negative sentences (e.g., “In the front of the tower there is a/no ghost”) followed by a matching or mismatching picture. Response latencies and event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured during reading and verification. An enhanced negative shift in the ERPs for the subject noun (i.e., “ghost”) in negative, compared to affirmative sentences, was found during reading. We relate this ERP deflection to enhanced processing demands required by the negative particle no. Although this effect suggests a direct impact of negation on language processing, results for picture processing reveal that negation is not immediately integrated into sentence meaning. When the delay of picture presentation was short (250 msec), verification latencies and ERPs evoked by the picture showed a priming effect independent of whether the sentence contained a negation. Unprimed pictures (foreground object not mentioned in the sentence) led to longer latencies and higher N400 amplitudes than primed pictures (foreground object mentioned in the sentence). Main effects of negation showed up only in a late positive-going ERP effect. In contrast, when the delay was long (1500 msec), we observed main effects of truth value and negation in addition to the priming effect already in the N400 time window, that is, negation is fully integrated into sentence meaning only at a later point in the comprehension process. When negation has not yet been integrated, verification decisions appear to be modulated by additional time-consuming reanalysis processes.

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