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Cerebral Cortex Advance Access published online on June 12, 2007
Cerebral Cortex, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhm076
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Spatiotemporal Interaction between Sound Form and Meaning during Spoken Word Perception

Johanna Uusvuori, Tiina Parviainen, Marianne Inkinen and Riitta Salmelin

Brain Research Unit, Low Temperature Laboratory, Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland

Address correspondence to Johanna Uusvuori, PO BOX 2200, 02015 TKK, Espoo, Finland. Email: johanna.uusvuori{at}hut.fi.

Cortical dynamics of spoken word perception is not well understood. The possible interplay between analysis of sound form and meaning, in particular, remains elusive. We used magnetoencephalography to study cortical manifestation of phonological and semantic priming. Ten subjects listened to lists of 4 words. The first 3 words set a semantic or phonological context, and the list-final word was congruent or incongruent with this context. Attenuation of activation by priming during the first 3 words and increase of activation to semantic or phonological mismatch in the list-final word provided converging evidence: The superior temporal cortex bilaterally was involved in both analysis of sound form and meaning but the role of each hemisphere varied over time. Sensitivity to sound form was observed at ~100 ms after word onset, followed by sensitivity to semantic aspects from ~250 ms onwards, in the left hemisphere. From ~450 ms onwards, the picture was changed, with semantic effects now present bilaterally, accompanied by a subtle late effect of sound form in the right hemisphere. Present MEG data provide a detailed spatiotemporal account of neural mechanisms during speech perception that may underlie characterizations obtained with other neuroimaging methods less sensitive in temporal or spatial domain.

Key Words: language • MEG • N100 • N400 • speech


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