A Study Of Visual Mismatch Negativity In Phoneme Merging In Chinese Dialect

The purpose of this research is to explore the brain mechanisms of phoneme merging phenomenon in visual word processing.We conducted behavioral and ERP experiments to further understand the impact of phoneme merging on language processing.We introduced homophones in Chinese characters to explore the sensitivity to phoneme merging.Phoneme merging refers to the phenomenon where two phonemes in a language are mixed together in different dialects and cannot be distinguished as separate phonemes.In this study,we focused specifically on the /n-l/ phoneme merging because it is very common in Chinese.This article will further explore the effect of this phenomenon on language processing and investigate whether phoneme training can restore the ability to distinguish merged phonemes.Past studies have shown that phoneme merging affects subjects’ behavioral responses and brain processing,especially in the left hemisphere’s auditory cortex.However,there has been no research on whether this phenomenon also occurs in visual word processing.Therefore,this study aims to investigate the effect of /n-l/ phoneme merging in visual words on language processing and further explore whether phoneme training can restore the ability to distinguish merged phonemes.To achieve this goal,we recruited a group of subjects for a key-press reaction experiment.The subjects were divided into two groups: phoneme merging group and phoneme distinction group.In the experiment,the subjects were required to ignore the Chinese characters with /n-l/ at the beginning and quickly react to the position of the dot on the circle.The subjects’ behavioral reaction time and error rate were recorded before the experiment,and their ERP data were recorded during the experiment.The results showed that phoneme merging not only affects auditory processing but also affects visual word processing.Due to the lack of specific phoneme memory traces,the merging group may not be able to correctly identify novel stimuli.The study analyzed the ERP data,and the results showed that for the phoneme merging group,their Vmmn component was significantly weakened.This indicates that phoneme merging may affect the brain’s processing of speech features at the visual level during visual word processing,thereby affecting the generation of Vmmn components.This finding further proves the impact of phoneme merging on the visual word processing process.Based on these findings,this study further investigated how five days of /n/-/l/ phoneme training could help phoneme mergers restore their ability to distinguish merged phonemes.Before and after the training,all subjects participated in ERP experiments.The results showed that the reaction time and error rate of the training group were significantly improved,and for the phoneme merging group,the Vmmn component was also significantly enhanced.This indicates that short-term phoneme training can help subjects restore their ability to distinguish merged phonemes,further confirming the effectiveness of phoneme training.Overall,this study explored the brain mechanisms of /n-l/ phoneme merging in visual words through behavioral and ERP experiments and confirmed the impact of phoneme merging on visual word processing.In addition,this study found that short-term phoneme training can help subjects restore their ability to distinguish merged phonemes.These findings are important for our in-depth understanding of speech processing mechanisms and improving speech recognition technology.Homophones in Chinese characters and phoneme merging phenomenon provide unique advantages and applications for phoneme research.Therefore,we can expand the research to other languages to further understand the impact and mechanisms of phoneme merging phenomenon on language processing.In addition,we can further expand and improve the scope and depth of the study by increasing the number of subjects and introducing other phoneme merging phenomena.