Neural correlates of lexical stress processing in a foreign free-stress language.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

The paper examines the discrimination of lexical stress contrasts in a foreign language from a neural perspective. The aim of the study was to identify the areas associated with word stress processing (in comparison with vowel processing), when listeners of a fixed-stress language have to process stress in a foreign free-stress language.

Methods

We asked French-speaking participants to process stress and vowel contrasts in Spanish, a foreign language that the participants did not know. Participants performed a discrimination task on Spanish word pairs differing either with respect to word stress (penultimate or final stressed word) or with respect to the final vowel while functional magnetic resonance imaging data was acquired.

Results

Behavioral results

SUBMITTER: Schwab S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9847599 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature