Brain responses in 4-month-old infants are already language specific
Brain responses in 4-month-old infants are already language specific
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DOI：
10.1016/j.cub.2007.06.011
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发表时间：
2007-07-17
期刊：
影响因子：
9.2
通讯作者：
Christophe, Anne
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Friederici, Angela D.;Friedrich, Manuela;Christophe, Anne
语言是人类区别于其他动物的最重要的能力。婴儿在生命的最初几年，根据环境中的语言输入，快速、轻松地学习母语。行为研究报告了 1-4 个月大的婴儿对旋律轮廓 [1] 和压力模式 [2, 3] 的辨别能力。行为 [4, 5] 和大脑测量 [6-8] 显示了该年龄段对语音对比的独立于语言的辨别。然而，据报道，仅针对 6-12 个月大的婴儿存在语音对比方面的特定语言歧视 [9-12]。在这里，我们通过使用电生理学大脑测量来展示 4 个月大的德国和法国婴儿的压力模式的语言特异性辨别。我们比较了节奏结构不同的双音节单词的处理，模仿德语单词在第一个音节上重读，例如，papa/daddy[13]，以及法语单词在第二个音节上重读，例如，papa/daddy。事件相关的大脑电位显示，德语和法语的经验对 4 个月大婴儿的大脑反应有不同的影响，每种语言组都显示出对其母语中典型的节奏结构的处理优势。这些数据表明早在 4 个月大的婴儿大脑中就存在语言特定的单词形式神经表征。
Language is the most important faculty that distinguishes humans from other animals. Infants learn their native language fast and effortlessly during the first years of life, as a function of the linguistic input in their environment. Behavioral studies reported the discrimination of melodic contours [1] and stress patterns [2, 3] in 1-4-month-olds. Behavioral [4, 5] and brain measures [6-8] have shown language-independent discrimination of phonetic contrasts at that age. Language-specific discrimination, however, has been reported for phonetic contrasts only for 6-12-month-olds [9-12]. Here we demonstrate language-specific discrimination of stress patterns in 4-month-old German and French infants by using electrophysiological brain measures. We compare the processing of disyllabic words differing in their rhythmic structure, mimicking German words being stressed on the first syllable, e.g., papa/daddy[13], and French ones being stressed on the second syllable, e.g., papa/daddy. Event-related brain potentials reveal that experience with German and French differentially affects the brain responses of 4-month-old infants, with each language group displaying a processing advantage for the rhythmic structure typical in its native language. These data indicate language-specific neural representations of word forms in the infant brain as early as 4 months of age.