Domain-General but not Speech-Specific Auditory Duration Perception Predicts Pseudoword Reading

Abstract

Duration perception abilities seem to enhance reading skills, but the reason for this remains under debate. Some studies focused on the ability to perceive the length of sounds (speech-related duration perception), while others approached general time skills (using, e.g., beep stimuli), but a direct comparison between the two modalities has not been done so far. In the present study, we compared the relevance of domain-general (comparison of time intervals defined by beeps) vs. speech-specific duration perception (pre-attentive EEG responses to different consonants) as statistical predictors of reading in adults. Reading included word and pseudoword decoding, as well as reading comprehension. We made regression-based analyses with the two time-related predictors for each reading skill. Pseudoword decoding was the only reading skill that was significantly predicted by duration perception, and this happened for domain-general duration perception only. Our findings strengthen the idea that skilled duration perception enhances phonological coding and its impact on grapheme-to-phoneme conversion processes. They also suggest that the benefits to phonological encoding are not specifically related to better processing of speech sound durations. Instead, the impact of skilled duration perception may rely on its connection to entrainment-to-speech skills, and the enhanced encoding of speech units that comes with it.