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Magnetoencephalography reveals attentional modulation of neural tracking of speech linguistic structure in children
Poster Session B, Friday, October 25, 10:00 - 11:30 am, Great Hall 3 and 4
LINGXI LU1, DANNI WU2; 1Beijing Language and Culture University
The human brain can efficiently track different levels of linguistic structures, such as syllables, phrases and sentences, to comprehend speech. However, there exists conflicting evidence regarding the role of attentional resources in processing linguistic structures: Some studies posit that constructing higher-level linguistic structures requires attentional engagement, while others suggest that adults can automatically process higher-level linguistic structures. Children, in comparison to adults, exhibit incomplete attentional control and cognitive executive functions. Thus far, how the child's brain tracks hierarchical linguistic structures and whether it relates to top-down attention remains elusive. To address this issue, we recruited 25 healthy children (aged 3-10 years) and 23 young adults (aged 19-25 years), all native Mandarin Chinese speakers. Using magnetoencephalography and the frequency-tagging paradigm, we examined the multi-level neural tracking responses of speech linguistic structures in two groups (children and adults) under active and passive listening conditions. Our findings revealed robust neural tracking responses to syllabic, phrasal, sentential structures under both active and passive listening conditions in both groups. Notably, neural tracking responses to sentences were significantly stronger under the active condition than the passive condition. In addition, children exhibited significant weaknesses in the neural representation of phrases compared to adults, although their tracking responses of syllables was stronger than adults. Analysis of attentional gain in both groups sheds light on the modulatory role of attentional resources in processing linguistic structures: adults showed greater attentional gain than children, and the gain particularly occurs at the sentential and phrasal levels compared to the syllabic level, implying that attention primarily influences the processing of higher-order linguistic structures. These findings demonstrate that, like adults, the child’s brain can generate neural representations of hierarchical linguistic structures in speech. Furthermore, higher-level linguistic structures are also processed under passive condition, supporting the hypothesis of automatic processing of hierarchical linguistic structures.
Topic Areas: Language Development/Acquisition, Speech Perception