The auditory processing of physical stimulus features can be measured by the mismatch negativity. Past studies have shown that higher-order stimulus features also elicit a mismatch negativity. In some studies, a second component, termed late mismatch negativity, has been observed; yet the functional significance of this component remains unclear. We tested two-tone-pattern stimuli following an abstract rule in healthy adults. As expected, the tone pattern elicited a significant mismatch negativity peaking at 146 ms but a significant late mismatch negativity at around 340 ms was also observed. These findings show that the violation of an abstract rule elicits an early and late mismatch negativity. The late mismatch negativity might be triggered on the basis of auditory rule extraction processes and reflect a transfer of rules to the long-term memory.
Lexical representation of natural signed language in interrelation to speech was explored by analyzing hearing signers' and non-signers' behavioral response patterns to a within-and across-language semantic decision task. Native hearing signers, non-native sign language interpreters and sign-naïve controls had to decide whether two lexical items (speech-speech or speech-sign) were antonymic or not. Aim of this study was to examine whether sign language and speech are interacting with each other on the semantic level.Response patterns indicate semantic effects on within-language conditions in all three groups, whereas clear semantically motivated responses to cross-language conditions were only apparent in the two signing groups, though with different functional distribution. Our data demonstrate how tightly signing and speech can be interconnected at the semantic level. This linkage is at least partly learned and connected with language usage. key words sign language, bimodal bilingualism, semantics
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