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In:Biolinguistic Investigations on the Language Faculty
Edited by Anna Maria Di Sciullo
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 235] 2016
► pp. 79–100

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Electroencephalographic evidence of vowels computation and representation in human auditory cortex

 | Centro di Ricerca Interdisciplinare sul Linguaggio (CRIL) x University of Salento, Lecce, ItalyDepartment of Human Movement, Social and Health Sciences, University of Rome “Foro Italico”, Rome, ItalyIRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome Italy
 | Centro di Ricerca Interdisciplinare sul Linguaggio (CRIL) x University of Salento, Lecce, ItalyDepartment of Human Movement, Social and Health Sciences, University of Rome “Foro Italico”, Rome, ItalyIRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome Italy
 | Centro di Ricerca Interdisciplinare sul Linguaggio (CRIL) x University of Salento, Lecce, ItalyDepartment of Human Movement, Social and Health Sciences, University of Rome “Foro Italico”, Rome, ItalyIRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome Italy
Published online: 24 November 2016
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.235.04gri
By exploiting the N1 component of the auditory event related potentials we aimed to measure and localize the processing involving the spectro-temporal and the abstract featural representation. We investigated the electroencephalography patterns of 11 Salento Italian speakers discriminating their native five stressed vowels [i, ε, a, ɔ, u]. Findings showed two distinct N1 sub-components: the N1a peaking at 125–135 ms, localized in the bilateral primary auditory cortex (BA41), and the N1b peaking at 145–155 ms, localized in the superior temporal gyrus (BA22) with a strong leftward lateralization. Crucially, while high vowels elicited higher amplitudes than non-high vowels both in the N1a and N1b, back vowels generated later responses than non-back vowels in the N1b only. Overall, these findings suggest a hierarchical processing where from the N1a to the N1b the acoustic analysis shift progressively toward the computation and representation of phonological features.
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