Event-related potentials representing auditory perceptual learning of foreign language features in nocturnal sleep
Year: 2016
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Whereas infants' language learning is effortless and automatic even so that enhancement in auditory discrimination has been found to happen during sleep, in adulthood learning a foreign language has been thought to require active practice.So far only few studies have been conducted on sleep learning in adults.Event-related potentials (ERPs) provide a way to reveal processing of foreign language features during sleep.To master a language, learning to discriminate speech sounds is necessary, which can be measured with the ERP component mismatch negativity (MMN).In the present study the EEG of 20 Finnish speaking participants naive for Chinese was recorded during four consecutive nights.Oddball condition was used to play the auditory tonal stimuli in sleep stage II.The sound series consisted of frequently occurring tone and two rare stimuli of different tonal change.For the first time it was shown that language features can be learned during sleep, as measured by the late negative wave and MMN that appeared on the fourth night.Furthermore the brain was able to process the auditory stimulus change during stage II as observed in the amplitude modulation of the ERP components MMN, P2, P400 and the late negative wave.P2, P3 and the late negative wave indicated that stimulus discrimination between the frequent stimulus and the larger tonal change occurred, whereas the late negative wave was the only component that differentiated between the frequent stimulus and the smaller tonal change as well as between the two tonal changes on the fourth night indicating sleep learning.Therefore not only does the sleeping brain consolidate memories, it seems to be able to process new information and is capable of stimulus discrimination to the extent that perceptual learning is possible.
Author: Kaisa Pentikäinen
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2546601886