So young, yet so mature? Electrophysiological and vascular correlates of phonotactic processing in 18-month-olds.

ABSTRACT: The present study investigated neural correlates of implicit phonotactic processing in 18-month-old children that just reached an important step in language development: the vocabulary spurt. Pseudowords, either phonotactically legal or illegal with respect to their native language, were acoustically presented to monolingually German raised infants. Neural activity was simultaneously assessed by means of electroencephalography (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The former method excellently tracks fast processing mechanisms, whereas the latter reveals brain areas recruited. Results of the present study indicate that 18-month-olds recognize the linguistic properties of their native language based on phonotactics. This manifested in an increased N400 for legal compared

SUBMITTER: Steber S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7184260 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature