Cortical representation of vowels reflects acoustic dissimilarity determined by formant frequencies

Journal article

Abstract:: We studied neuromagnetic correlates of the processing of German vowels [a], [e], and [i]. The aim was (i) to show an influence of acoustic/phonetic features on timing and mapping of the N100m component and (ii) to demonstrate the retest reliability of these parameters. To assess the spatial configuration of the N100m generators, Euclidean distances between vowel sources were computed. Latency, amplitude, and source locations of the N100m component differed between vowels. The acoustically most dissimilar vowels [a] and [i] showed more distant source locations than the more similar vowels [e] and [i]. This pattern of results was reliably found in a second experimental session after at least 5 days. The results suggest the preservation of spectral dissimilarities as mapped in a F1-F2 vowel space in a cortical representation.

Language:: English
Keywords:: auditory evoked potential

central auditory system

auditory evoked field

auditory cortex
Subjects:: Linguistics
UUID:: uuid:6edac682-d9df-4818-94b6-35078bc0d277
Local pid:: ora:2428
Deposit date:: 2008-11-10

Copyright holder:: Elsevier Science B V
Notes:: Citation: Obleser, J. et al. (2003). 'Cortical representation of vowels reflects acoustic dissimilarity determined by formant frequencies', Cognitive Brain Research, 15(3), 207-213. [Available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09266410 ]. The full-text of this article is not available in ORA, but you may be able to access it via the publisher copy link on this record page. N.B. Professor Lahiri was based at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Konstanz when this paper was first published.

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