Distinct roles of delta- and theta-band neural tracking for sharpening and predictive coding of multi-level speech features during spoken language processing.

ABSTRACT: The brain tracks and encodes multi-level speech features during spoken language processing. It is evident that this speech tracking is dominant at low frequencies (<8 Hz) including delta and theta bands. Recent research has demonstrated distinctions between delta- and theta-band tracking but has not elucidated how they differentially encode speech across linguistic levels. Here, we hypothesised that delta-band tracking encodes prediction errors (enhanced processing of unexpected features) while theta-band tracking encodes neural sharpening (enhanced processing of expected features) when people perceive speech with different linguistic contents. EEG responses were recorded when normal-hearing participants attended to continuous auditory stimuli that contained different phonological/morpholo

SUBMITTER: Mai G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10619373 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature