TY - JOUR
T1 - Spontaneous synchronization to speech reveals neural mechanisms facilitating language learning
AU - Assaneo, M. Florencia
AU - Ripollés, Pablo
AU - Orpella, Joan
AU - Lin, Wy Ming
AU - de Diego-Balaguer, Ruth
AU - Poeppel, David
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature America, Inc.
PY - 2019/4/1
Y1 - 2019/4/1
N2 - We introduce a deceptively simple behavioral task that robustly identifies two qualitatively different groups within the general population. When presented with an isochronous train of random syllables, some listeners are compelled to align their own concurrent syllable production with the perceived rate, whereas others remain impervious to the external rhythm. Using both neurophysiological and structural imaging approaches, we show group differences with clear consequences for speech processing and language learning. When listening passively to speech, high synchronizers show increased brain-to-stimulus synchronization over frontal areas, and this localized pattern correlates with precise microstructural differences in the white matter pathways connecting frontal to auditory regions. Finally, the data expose a mechanism that underpins performance on an ecologically relevant word-learning task. We suggest that this task will help to better understand and characterize individual performance in speech processing and language learning.
AB - We introduce a deceptively simple behavioral task that robustly identifies two qualitatively different groups within the general population. When presented with an isochronous train of random syllables, some listeners are compelled to align their own concurrent syllable production with the perceived rate, whereas others remain impervious to the external rhythm. Using both neurophysiological and structural imaging approaches, we show group differences with clear consequences for speech processing and language learning. When listening passively to speech, high synchronizers show increased brain-to-stimulus synchronization over frontal areas, and this localized pattern correlates with precise microstructural differences in the white matter pathways connecting frontal to auditory regions. Finally, the data expose a mechanism that underpins performance on an ecologically relevant word-learning task. We suggest that this task will help to better understand and characterize individual performance in speech processing and language learning.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41593-019-0353-z
DO - 10.1038/s41593-019-0353-z
M3 - Article
C2 - 30833700
AN - SCOPUS:85062587806
SN - 1097-6256
VL - 22
SP - 627
EP - 632
JO - Nature Neuroscience
JF - Nature Neuroscience
IS - 4
ER -