Unconscious improvement in foreign language learning using mismatch negativity neurofeedback: A preliminary study

Abstract

When people learn foreign languages, they find it difficult to perceive speech sounds that are nonexistent in their native language, and extensive training is consequently necessary. Our previous studies have shown that by using neurofeedback based on the mismatch negativity event-related brain potential, participants could unconsciously achieve learning in the auditory discrimination of pure tones that could not be consciously discriminated without the neurofeedback. Here, we examined whether mismatch negativity neurofeedback is effective for helping someone to perceive new speech sounds in foreign language learning. We developed a task for training native Japanese speakers to discriminate between ‘l’ and ‘r’ sounds in English, as they usually cannot discriminate between these two sounds. Without participants attending to auditory stimuli or being aware of the nature of the experiment, neurofeedback training helped them to achieve significant improvement in unconscious auditory discrimination and recognition of the target words ‘light’ and ‘right’. There was also improvement in the recognition of other words containing ‘l’ and ‘r’ (e.g., ‘blight’ and ‘bright’), even though these words had not been presented during training. This method could be used to facilitate foreign language learning and can be extended to other fields of auditory and clinical research and even other senses.

Enhancing Working Memory Based on Mismatch Negativity Neurofeedback in Subjective Cognitive Decline Patients: A Preliminary Study

“…The individual auditory discrimination threshold was used as the deviation stimulus in our study while a previous study used a fixed frequency as the deviation parameters. Some of our results are inconsistent with the previous data, and the discrepancy may be caused by different paradigm parameters of the experimental design (Chang et al, 2014 , 2017 ). Considering that the MMN index discrimination of various sound stimuli can result from a rigid matching similar to behavioral discrimination, the MMN signals are associated with the magnitude of deviation and involve perceptual discriminability (Näätänen et al, 2017 ).…”

“…Previous studies in 2014 have shown that MMN neurofeedback training can improve discrimination between very similar tones, such as “1,000 Hz” and “1,008 Hz” by Chang et al ( 2014 ). A study published in 2017 used MMN neurofeedback to successfully discriminate the English pronunciation between the letters “l” and “r” to facilitate the foreign language learning (Chang et al, 2017 ). These studies focused on the use of learning to discriminate the targeting of the similar stimuli, similar to discrimination between standard and deviant stimuli during the neurofeedback training to elicit MMN.…”

“…Importantly, auditory-cognitive training showed general improvements in speech, auditory WM, and processing speed, as well as enhanced self-reporting of communication difficulties (Sweetow and Sabes, 2006 ; Ferguson and Henshaw, 2015 ). At present, MMN neurofeedback has been successfully used in adults mainly for the adjustment of sensory abilities, such as improving auditory discriminability for two particularly similar tones and enhancing language ability and music level (Chang et al, 2014 , 2017 ). Although the improvement of sensory ability can improve work memory by cognitive training, there are insufficient clinical data on optimization of cognitive ability by MMN neurofeedback training; to the best of our knowledge, no studies have investigated the effect of MMN neurofeedback on memory brain function.…”

Pupil dilation reflects English /l//r/ discrimination ability for Japanese learners of English: a pilot study

“…test was assessed with a 2AFC (Two-alternative forced choice) task to evaluate subjective /l/-/r/ auditory distinguishing ability (lrADA) in advance of the pupillometry experiment. The word sets used in this test were selected by referring to the experiment by Chang et al 6 . Twenty speech synthesized English words including phoneme /l/ and /r/ each, were generated and controlled in the same way as the experiment stimuli.…”

“…Speech synthesized stimuli pair "light" /lάit/ or "right" /rάit/ by a female speaker were presented as either the standard sound, which is frequently presented, or as the deviant sound, which is the target stimuli in the oddball paradigm. The stimuli and procedure are based on the previous study focusing on auditory English distinction combined with EEG measurement technologies 6 . The two stimuli were presented in pseudo-randomized order, the oddball stimuli presented in low frequency were controlled not to be presented continuously.…”