Proficiency Erp Study Of Dual-speaker Voice Processing

The ability of Phonological processing is a basic capacity of the mastering of language. The research of bilinguals from a cross-language point of view has demonstrated that the difficulty of discriminating non-native phoneme contrasts reflect the differences of neural processing in early stage. However, the processing of diglots is still a matter of social as well as scientific debate. Previous behavioral research indicates that starting second language learning late in life can lead to problems in phonological processing. In this paper, we explore the influence of proficiency levels on the phonological processing of Chinese diglots employing an electrophysiological method.The experiment is designed take advantage of Chinese consonant merger. A modified oddball paradigm is employed, recording both behavioral and EEG data. Minimal pairs of words that contrasted in the critical consonant were presented auditorily under merger condition and control condition.45 graduates and undergraduates (stander group, high proficiency group and low proficiency group) participated in this experiment. They were asked to do a same\different task. The amplitudes of relevant ERP components such as P1, MMN and P3 were submitted to multivariate analysis of variance.The results demonstrated that (1) a significant MMN is elicited in the incongruent unmerged condition in three groups; (2) a significant P3 is elicited in the two incongruent conditions in three groups, while in congruent condition, P3 and frontal P3 are elicited in high proficiency group; (3) there is no statistically significant of N1 amplitude difference between stander group and low proficiency group under the two merger condition, while the high proficiency group elicited a enhanced N1 in incongruent merger condition.Together these findings suggest that:(1) the neural basis of dialect processing is the same as that of the second language, dialect speakers difficulties in perception phonemes contrast which does not exist in their native phonemes lists is caused by difficulties of coping in early phase. (2) the studies after the key period can improve the ability of phonemes distinguishing, so the grown brain still bears plasticity, the ability acquired later has differences compare with the formers, additional attention is needed to support it.