Pre-attentive auditory processing of lexicality

Brain and Language 88 (2004) 54–67

www.elsevier.com/locate/b&l

Pre-attentive auditory processing of lexicalityq

Thomas Jacobsen,a,* J�aanos Horv�aath,b Erich Schr€ooger,a Sonja Lattner,c Andreas Widmann,a

and Istv�aan Winklerb

a Institut f€uur Allgemeine Psychologie, Universit€aat Leipzig, Seeburgstraße 14-20, Leipzig 04103, Germanyb Institute of Psychology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

c Max Planck Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Leipzig, Germany

Accepted 22 May 2003

Abstract

The effects of lexicality on auditory change detection based on auditory sensory memory representations were investigated by

presenting oddball sequences of repeatedly presented stimuli, while participants ignored the auditory stimuli. In a cross-linguistic

study of Hungarian and German participants, stimulus sequences were composed of words that were language-familiar, lexical,

meaningful in Hungarian but language-unfamiliar, not lexical, meaningless in German, and words with the opposite characteristics.

The roles of frequently presented stimuli (Standards) and infrequently presented one (Deviants) were fully crossed. Language-fa-

miliar and language-unfamiliar Deviants elicited the Mismatch Negativity component of the event-related brain potential. We found

differences in processes of change detection depending on whether the Standard was language-familiar, or not. Whereas, the lexi-

cality of the Deviant had no effect on the processes of change detection. Also, language-familiar Standards processed differently than

language-unfamiliar ones. We suggest that pre-attentive (default) tuning to meaningful words sets up language-specific preparatory

processes that affect change detection in speech sequences.

� 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.

Keywords: Speech comprehension; Lexical processing; Auditory sensory memory; Mismatch Negativity (MMN); Event-related potentials (ERP)

1. Introduction

When engaged in a conversation, listeners tune in to

the relevant stream of speech and filter out irrelevant

speech input that may be present in the same environ-

ment. Nonetheless, attention might be involuntarily di-

verted to meaningful items coming from an ignored

stream, like in the well-known own-name effect (e.g.,

Moray, 1959). This brings up the question of to what

extent speech is processed in the ignored streams. Thepresent study is concerned with an issue related to this

question.

qThis study was supported by the DFG, the German-Hungarian

Scientist Exchange Program (DAAD-M€OOB Grant 53/2001), and the

Hungarian National Research Fund (OTKA T034112). The authors

thank Ter�eez Bal�aazs, Kinga Gyimesi, and Martina Nemetz for technical

assistance.* Corresponding author. Fax: +49-0341-97-35-969.

E-mail address: [email protected] (T. Jacobsen).

0093-934X/$ - see front matter � 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights re

doi:10.1016/S0093-934X(03)00156-1

Some processing of unattended speech sounds occurs

even when one performs an unrelated task. For exam-ple, Service, Winkler, Maury, and N€aa€aat€aanen (submitted)

have shown that the phonotactical structure of ignored

spoken pseudowords, phonologically legal non-words of

a given language, is processed even when the speech

sounds are irrelevant for the participant�s task. Using

the event-related brain potential (ERP) technique allows

one to assess speech processing with millisecond accu-

racy and without the interference of task-related pro-cesses and participant strategies. ERPs are thus

frequently used in related studies, in particular, the

Mismatch Negativity (MMN) ERP component, which is

elicited whether or not participants attend or ignore the

sounds.

The MMN and its magnetic counterpart, the

MMNm, reflect the detection of a change of the cur-

rent auditory event from the auditory stimulus repre-sentations extrapolated from the regularities, which

have been extracted from the preceding auditory

served.

T. Jacobsen et al. / Brain and Language 88 (2004) 54–67 55

stimulation (deviance detection; for recent reviews, seeN€aa€aat€aanen & Winkler, 1999; Picton, Alain, Otten,

Ritter, & Achim, 2000). Deviation from various sim-

ple, complex, and even abstract auditory regularities

elicit MMN (for a review, see N€aa€aat€aanen, Tervaniemi,

Sussman, Paavilainen, & Winkler, 2001), whereas reg-

ular sounds or other sounds presented at a time when

no acoustic regularities have been recently extracted

(e.g., after a long silent break) do not (e.g., Cowan,Winkler, Teder, & N€aa€aat€aanen, 1993). The MMN-gen-

erating process is not volitional, it does not require

attentive selection of the sounds. MMN is elicited

whether or not the sounds are relevant for the par-

ticipant�s task (see N€aa€aat€aanen, 1992). Thus the MMN

can be used to study what auditory regularities have

been detected by ‘‘default’’ in the auditory system (i.e.,

when the sounds are not in the focus of attention) and,by way of assessing the detected regularities, what kind

of analyses have been performed on task-irrelevant

sounds.

The electrically recordable MMN component ap-

pears as a negative deflection in the ERP, reaching its

peak between 100 and 250ms from the onset of the

deviation (the moment at which the auditory stimu-

lation starts to differ from what has been detected asinvariant in the preceding sounds). It shows a maximal

(negative) amplitude over fronto-central scalp areas

usually appearing with reversed polarity at electrodes

positioned over the opposite side of the Sylvian fis-

sure, such as the mastoid leads (e.g., Schr€ooger, 1998).These features of the MMN component stem from its

predominantly auditory cortical origin (e.g., Alho,

1995).Training has long-term effects on what regularities

are detected for irrelevant sounds as well as on the

precision of the regularity representations. For example,

professional musicians detect, attentively as well as in

passive situations (as measured with the MMN) more

complex regularities and smaller acoustical changes, but

only for familiar sounds and/or in familiar contexts

(Brattico, N€aa€aat€aanen, & Tervaniemi, 2002; Koelsch,Schr€ooger, & Tervaniemi, 1999; van Zuijen, Sussman,

Winkler, N€aa€aat€aanen, & Tervaniemi, submitted; for a re-

view, see Schr€ooger, Tervaniemi, & Huotilainen, in

press). Under experimental conditions, training with

unfamiliar sounds resulted not only in improved active

discrimination, but also in detecting changes in passive

situations hours, days, or even months after the original

training session (e.g., Atienza & Cantero, 2001; Huoti-lainen, Kujala, & Alku, 2001; Kraus, McGee, Carrell, &

Sharma, 1995; N€aa€aat€aanen, Schr€ooger, Karakas, Tervani-

emi, & Paavilainen, 1993). Similarly to the above ex-

amples from music, the regularity-based comparison

process reflected by the MMN ERP component is not

only sensitive to acoustic changes but also to learned,

language-specific auditory deviancy (for a review, see

N€aa€aat€aanen, 2001). For example, in a cross-linguisticstudy of Hungarian and Finnish, Winkler et al. (1999b)

used within- and across-category phoneme contrasts

that were reversed for the two languages. By means of

this crossed design, they demonstrated that the MMN-

generating process simultaneously operates both on the

basis of auditory sensory memory and categorical pho-

netic stimulus representations (for similar conclusions,

see Dehaene-Lambertz, 1997; N€aa€aat€aanen et al., 1997;Phillips et al., 2000; Sharma & Dorman, 2000). These

results suggest that linguistic information triggers addi-

tional processes, which may prepare the auditory system

for detecting language-specific auditory deviations. In

addition to the above-mentioned categorical-perception

effects on MMN, parallel effects have been found on

MMN recorded in passive situations and perception by

studies investigating the ‘‘perceptual magnet’’ (Kuhl,1991) and the effects of language training (Aaltonen,

Eerola, Hellstrom, Uusipaikka, & Lang, 1997; Cheour

et al., 1998; Kraus et al., 1995; Winkler et al., 1999a).

The default detection of speech-specific deviations sug-

gests language-specific processing of the task-irrelevant

speech sounds. The question asked by the present study

is whether or not these default language-specific pro-

cesses include lexical analysis of the task-irrelevant, ig-nored auditory input.

Only a few MMN studies have used spoken word-

level stimuli. In a study measuring event-related mag-

netic responses, Diesch, Biermann, and Luce (1998)

presented blocked oddball sequences consisting of an

infrequently presented pseudoword (the deviant) and,

in one condition, a frequently presented different

pseudoword (the standard) or, in the other condition, afrequently presented word (the other standard). All

stimuli were comprised of two consonant–vowel–con-

sonant (CVC) syllables. Equivalent current dipole mo-

ments for mismatch fields were stronger in the

condition using pseudoword standards than in the

condition using word standards. Based on the analysis

of the MMNm generator locations and the area of the

MMN-related neural activity, the authors concludedthat pseudoword standards trigger more extensive

processing than word standards. The authors suggest

that, in the case of the pseudoword standard, following

a failed attempt at lexical access, the brain engages

additional processes (‘‘tries to make sense’’ of the

stimulus). This additional processing results in a more

detailed representation of the standard, which then

leads to the elicitation of a stronger MMNm response.However, this study confounded the amount of

acoustical–perceptual change between stimuli with the

lexical status of the standards.

Korpilahti, Krause, Holopainen, and Lang (2001)

presented 4–7-year-old children with oddball blocks

consisting of an infrequently presented word (deviant)

among a frequently presented word (standard) and, in

56 T. Jacobsen et al. / Brain and Language 88 (2004) 54–67

a separate block, a pseudoword deviant among apseudoword standard (all stimuli had a CVCV struc-

ture). The authors obtained a negative ERP effect for

the word deviant, which peaked between 400 and

450ms after the words onset, which they termed the

‘‘late MMN.’’ The pseudoword deviant elicited a

weaker late-MMN than the word deviant. The authors

concluded that pre-attentive ‘‘auditory processing, . . .,is highly associated with the cognitive meaning of thestimuli’’ (p. 332). However, the late MMN has only

been found in children to now. Therefore, it may

represent some process that does not characterize

adults (the ERP wave-forms go through marked

changes during development; see, e.g., Cheour, Lep-

paenen, & Kraus, 2000). Moreover, Korpilahti et al.

(2001) did not separate the lexical status variable from

acoustic/phonetic factors either.Based on their EEG and MEG results, Pulverm€uuller

et al. (2001) suggested that task-irrelevant words un-

dergo lexical analysis. In their EEG experiments, a word

and a pseudoword deviant were presented amongst a

pseudoword standard. In the MEG experiment, isolated

syllables were presented in random succession at a 450-

ms stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). On 16% of the

trials, a succession of two of these syllables resulted ei-ther in a word or a pseudoword deviant. Responses to

the codas from these word and pseudoword deviants

were compared with those elicited by standard isolated

syllables in order to assess the parameters of the MMN

components. In all critical comparisons, larger MMNs

were elicited by word deviants than by pseudoword

deviants. The authors interpreted their results as re-

flecting the ‘‘presence of memory traces for individualspoken words in the human brain.’’ It should be noted

that Pulverm€uuller et al.�s results seem to contradict the

results of Diesch et al. (1998).

Finally, Wunderlich and Cone-Wesson (2001) re-

ported that CVC word deviants and CV syllable devi-

ants were less likely to elicit MMN and that the

amplitude of the MMN response is smaller for these

types of stimuli than when the oddball protocol iscomposed of tones. These results contradict the re-

mainder of the literature on MMN elicited by speech

sounds (in addition to the papers already mentioned,

see, e.g., Cs�eepe, Osman-S�aagi, Moln�aar, & Gosy, 2001;

Rinne et al., 1999; Sams, Aulanko, Aaltonen, &

N€aa€aat€aanen, 1990; Sandridge & Boothroyd, 1996; Szy-

manski, Yund, & Woods, 1999). Therefore, perhaps

these anomalous results stem from parametricdiscrepancies rather then pointing to theoretical

implications.

Based on the differences in design and experimental

procedure, the MMN studies on pre-attentive memo-

ry-based comparison of spoken words yielded a partly

contradictory pattern of results. The different ap-

proaches are especially striking, with regards to the

effects of lexicality. Diesch et al. (1998) focused on theeffects of the lexicality of the standards, the frequently

presented stimuli that form the context. Pulverm€uulleret al. (2001) tested the effects of the lexicality of the

deviant, the infrequently presented stimulus violating

the regularity. Finally, Korpilahti et al. (2001) used

either only words or only pseudowords in their in-

block stimulus sequences. The present experiment

combines these approaches by using a complete, fullycrossed 2� 2 design of word and pseudoword deviants

as well as word and pseudoword standards. Another

important aspect of the reviewed experiments is that

in most cases there was no adequate control for a

possibly confounding factor, i.e., the perceived

acoustical difference between the standard and the

deviant stimulus. Because larger perceived acoustic

differences result in the elicitation of MMNs withhigher amplitude and shorter peak latency (see, e.g.,

N€aa€aat€aanen, 1992), some of the MMN amplitude dif-

ferences obtained in the reviewed studies may be due

to unequal perceived acoustical differences in the

compared conditions. By performing a cross-language

study, we maintain full control over this factor, i.e.,

each Standard or Deviant is a language-familiar,

meaningful word in one language group while being alanguage-unfamiliar pseudoword in the other language

group. Therefore, the present study will help to clarify

(1) whether lexical analysis is performed for task-ir-

relevant ignored speech and (2) if so, whether the

lexical analysis affects the default auditory change

detection processes via the Standard or through the

Deviant, or both.

1.1. Experiment preview

Pre-attentive auditory processing of lexicality was

investigated. To this end participants were presented

with word-level stimuli which they ignored while

watching a silent movie. Lexicality was isolated by

controlling for group and stimulus differences in a cross-

linguistic study. Stimuli were comprised of words thatwere language-familiar, lexical, meaningful in Hungar-

ian but language-unfamiliar, not lexical, meaningless in

German, and words with the opposite characteristics. In

oddball sequences, infrequently presented stimuli, De-

viants, appeared randomly in the context of frequently

presented ones, Standards. In the present experimental

design, lexicality and the roles of Standards and Devi-

ants were fully crossed. The question was whether thelexical status of a word is processed even when the word

appears in an ignored auditory stream. If yes, then the

lexical status of the Standard, of the Deviant, or both

may affect the ‘‘default’’ processes of auditory change

detection. By ‘‘default’’ processing we mean the treat-

ment of ignored information in everyday situations,

when one focuses on one source of information while

T. Jacobsen et al. / Brain and Language 88 (2004) 54–67 57

other, currently irrelevant sources are also active in theenvironment.1

In addition to testing the elicitation and parameters

of the MMN components, differences in processing

language-familiar and language-unfamiliar Standards

were be investigated. The present experiment can detect

lexical analysis processes for ignored speech sounds (1) if

these processes affect the ERP responses elicited by the

repetitive speech stimuli or (2) if these processes affectthe regularity representations (which include the repre-

sentation of the speech sounds) extracted from the re-

peating speech sounds, or (3) if these processes directly

affect the processing of the infrequently presented speech

stimuli, the Deviants. The second and third effects would

appear as changes in the MMN component, which re-

sults from detecting some mismatch between the deviant

sound and the representation of the regular aspects ofthe speech sequence. Winkler et al. (1999b) suggested

that the MMN elicited by deviant speech-sounds may

have two separate sub-components: one elicited by

acoustic deviance and another elicited by deviance in

some categorical form of information, e.g., classes of

word stimuli. The present study focuses on the com-

parison of MMN effects that can be attributed to the

experimental variation of lexicality, i.e., whether thegiven spoken word items were meaningful (words for

the given participant group) or not (pseudowords). Thus

we expect to obtain MMN components to be elicited in

all four conditions of the present study due to acoustic

differences between the Standards and Deviants. The

answer to our questions will be found (a) by comparing

the responses elicited by the same speech items when

they serve as words and when they serve as pseudowords(i.e., across the two language groups) and (b) by ex-

amining the modulation of the MMN responses with

respect to the lexical familiarity of the Standards and

Deviants.

We shall consider four hypotheses, which have been

put forward by the previous studies. The lexical trace

hypothesis, as advocated by Pulverm€uuller et al. (2001)

predicts that word deviants should elicit a larger MMNthan pseudoword deviants irrespective of the lexical fa-

miliarity of the standard stimuli. The supplementary

processing hypothesis, as suggested by Diesch et al.

(1998), assumes that attempts at lexical access are re-

peatedly made by the system even for highly repetitive

sound items. It predicts larger MMN to be elicited by

deviants presented among meaningless than by mean-

ingful word standards, irrespective of the deviants� lex-ical status. A third hypothesis can be derived from the

1 The term ‘‘default’’ has been taken from the computer literature,

in which it denotes processes performing a given function even when

the operator does not interact with them. The details of the process

can, however, be modified to a certain extent by explicit instructions

from the user.

results showing that familiar contexts enhance the pro-cesses of change detection (see Section 1). Applying this

notion to the present experiment, one can suggest that a

sound environment containing mostly meaningful words

sets a more familiar context than the repetition of

pseudowords. The familiar context hypothesis then sug-

gests MMNs of higher amplitude to be elicited by de-

viants appearing in the more familiar than in the less

familiar context, irrespective of the lexical status of thedeviant item. Finally, the lexical context hypothesis is a

version of the familiar context hypothesis, which focuses

on linguistic processes. The dominance of meaningful

words in a speech sequence creates a language context in

which potentially relevant speech events are likely to

occur. Pseudoword standards, on the other hand, create

an unknown-language, or perhaps even no-language

context. The lexical context hypothesis thus predicts thatthe default processing of meaningful and pseudoword

standards will differ and, further that the results of the

lexical analysis of the standard words will result in an

additional deviance-detection component to be elicited

within the MMN response (analogously to the results of

Winkler et al. (1999b) for phonetic categories). The

general familiar context and the lexical context hy-

potheses are closely related, though the specific predic-tion of the latter hypothesis concerning the processing of

the standards can be tested by comparing the ERP re-

sponses elicited by the standard speech items. Also the

three hypotheses are not mutually exclusive either and,

therefore, interactions between the postulated processes

may occur. These will be tested in the present study.

2. Method

2.1. Participants

Ten native speakers of Hungarian (6 male, mean age

of 21.5 years, range 18–31, normal auditory status) and

10 native speakers of German (7 male, mean age of 27.5

years, range 23–33, normal auditory status) participatedin the study for monetary compensation (Hungarians)

or partial fulfillment of grant requirements (Germans).

None of the participants had knowledge of the respec-

tive foreign language of this study or had foreign lan-

guage experience, in general prior to the age of nine

years. All participants acquired at least one foreign

language after this age (mostly English).

2.2. Stimuli

The stimuli consisted of four consonant–vowel–con-

sonant (CVC) words. The Hungarian minimal pair s�aap([Sa:p], engl. transl. ‘‘illegal profit’’) and s�aas ([Sa:S], engl.transl. ‘‘sedge’’), and the German minimal pair Scham

([Sa:m], engl. transl. ‘‘shame’’) and Schaf ([Sa:f], engl.

Table 1

Stimulus material

Stimulus S, ms a:

(1st part),

ms

a:

(2nd part),

ms

Final

consonant,

ms

Overall

duration,

ms

[Sa:p] 190 140 155 149 634

[Sa:S] 190 140 178 254 762

[Sa:m] 190 140 157 183 691

[Sa:f] 190 140 155 206 670

58 T. Jacobsen et al. / Brain and Language 88 (2004) 54–67

transl. ‘‘sheep’’) were used. These items form a cross-linguistic, phonologically minimal quadruplet. The two

Hungarian words are pseudowords in German, and vice

versa. The four items were synthesized using the

MBROLA diphone synthesizer (German database, fe-

male speaker; http://txts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis/). Intensi-

ties were normalized and presented at approximately

70 dB SPL. The stimuli consisted of the acoustically

identical word beginnings [Sa:] up to about 330ms fromthe onset. Durations of the speech sounds are given in

Table 1. The stimuli were pre-tested for adequacy by

native speakers of both languages. In addition, classic

silent movies (e.g., ‘‘The General’’) were used.

2.3. Apparatus

Word sequences were presented in a sound-attenuatedexperimental chamber by the NeuroScan Stim system

through TDH 39 headphones. Visual stimuli were pre-

sented on a 51-cm TV screen at a viewing distance of

approximately 200 cm. The EEG was recorded using Ag/

AgCl electrodes, EC2 electrode cream (Grass Instru-

ments), and a NeuroScan SynAmps EEG amplifier.

2.4. Procedure

2.4.1. Experimental design

A fully crossed 2� 2 design of language-familiar

and language-unfamiliar Standards and Deviants was

used. Stimuli that were language-familiar for one

language group were language-unfamiliar for the other

language group, and vice versa. This way, each par-

ticipant and each stimulus contributed equally to both

Table 2

Experimental design

Four deviance conditions

Deviant: S�aap Standard: Schaf

Deviant: Scham Standard: Schaf

Deviant: S�aap Standard: S�aas

Deviant: Scham Standard: S�aas

Two control conditions

Control: S�aapControl Scham

Note. LF, language-familiar stimulus; LU, language-unfamiliar stimulus.

levels of lexicality, and provided thus his own control.The experimental design is shown in Table 2. In

separate blocked conditions, either a language-famil-

iar, meaningful word or a language-unfamiliar, non-

meaningful word, thus a pseudoword, served as the

frequently presented stimulus, the Standard, with a

within-sequence probability of 88%. In addition, each

blocked condition had one infrequently presented

language-familiar word Deviant, and one infrequentlypresented language-unfamiliar word Deviant, each

being presented with within-sequence probabilities of

6%.The order of the stimuli was randomized with the

constraint that a minimum of two Standards had to

occur between two consecutive Deviants. For control

purposes (see below), the items that served as Devi-

ants in the oddball blocks (s�aap [Sa:p] & Scham [Sa:m])

were also presented by themselves in homogeneousControl sequences (one for each of the two deviant

items).

2.4.2. Experiment structure

Participants were comfortably seated in the dimly lit

chamber. They were instructed to watch a silent movie

and to ignore the auditory stimulation. Each blocked

oddball condition was split into six test blocks. (Notethat each oddball block is shared by two conditions

having the same Standard and two different Deviants, see

above). Additionally, two control blocks, one for each

Deviant, were run. Stimulus sequences were presented

with a trial structure showing a uniform SOA of 1200ms.

The oddball blocks contained 400 trials, 352 repetitions

of Standards, and 2� 24 repetitions of Deviants result-

ing in a total of 144 Deviant trials and 2112 Standardtrails per condition. The control blocks delivered 250

trials, each. Altogether 14 stimulus blocks were admin-

istered to participants. The oddball blocks preceded the

control blocks. The order of the test blocks was coun-

terbalanced between participants, separately within each

language group. The sequence of control blocks was

likewise counterbalanced. There were breaks of 5–10min

after Blocks 4 and 9. An experimental session lastedapproximately 2 h (plus additional time for electrode

application and removal).

Hungarians: LF / LU Germans: LU / LF

Hungarians: LU / LU Germans: LF / LF

Hungarians: LF / LF Germans: LU / LU

Hungarians: LU / LF Germans: LF / LU

Hungarians: LF Germans: LU

Hungarians: LU Germans: LF

T. Jacobsen et al. / Brain and Language 88 (2004) 54–67 59

2.5. Electrophysiological recordings

The electroencephalogram (EEG) was continuously

recorded from 11 scalp locations (F3, Fz, F4, C3, Cz, C4,

P3, Pz, and P4) according to the extended 10–20 system

(American Electroencephalographic Society, 1991) and

the left and right mastoids (Lm and Rm, respectively).

The reference electrode was attached to the tip of the

nose. Electroocular activity (EOG) was recorded withbipolar montages, the vertical EOG between a supra-

and an infraorbitally placed electrode and the horizontal

EOG between the outer canthi of the two eyes. Electrode

impedances were kept below 10 kX. On-line filtering was

carried out using a 40-Hz low-pass and 50-Hz notch filter

(DC recording). The signal was digitized with a 16-bit

resolution at a sampling rate of 250Hz.

2.6. Data analysis

All continuous EEG records were off-line filtered

with a band-pass of 1.5–20Hz. Epochs of 900-ms du-

ration, time-locked to the onset of the stimuli, in-

cluding a 100-ms pre-stimulus-onset interval were

extracted and averaged (point-by-point, time-wise)

separately for oddball and control sequences andcondition within the sequence (Standard, Deviant, and

Control vs. language-familiar and language-unfamil-

iar). The ERP responses to the first five stimuli in each

block as well as epochs showing a signal change ex-

ceeding 100 lV on any recording channel were ex-

cluded from further analysis. For visualizing the

results, grand-averages for each ERP response were

computed from the individual average ERPs. Grand-averages were derived according to the language-fa-

miliar versus language-unfamiliar classification of the

stimuli in the conditions, thus collapsing the two par-

ticipant groups (Hungarian and German). This means

that, for example, the grand-average response to the

language-unfamiliar Standard includes the responses

elicited by the Hungarian word ‘‘s�aas’’ in the German

participants and the responses elicited by the Germanword ‘‘Schaf’’ in the Hungarian participants (see Table

2). As a result of this procedure, the two participant

groups as well as the Hungarian and German words

contributed equally to each grand-average response,

thus eliminating the effects of stimulus and group

differences from the grand-averages.

The MMN responses were assessed from Deviant-

minus-Control difference responses. The Control for agiven Deviant was the identical stimulus presented in the

respective Control block. The ERP responses to Stan-

dards were computed while omitting the responses to

those Standards that followed a Deviant by one or two

positions in the stimulus sequence, because these re-

sponses may contain some MMN (see, e.g., Winkler,

Karmos, & N€aa€aat€aanen, 1996).

ERP effects were quantified using 32ms time windowscentered on the peak of the respective wave in the grand-

average ERP or ERP difference (the latter being used for

the MMN component). In order to quantify the full

MMN amplitude, the frontal (Fz) Deviant-minus-Con-

trol difference response was rereferenced to the linked

mastoid leads. This calculation sums the frontally

measured response with its polarity-reversed counter-

part appearing at the mastoid leads (see, e.g., N€aa€aat€aanen,1992; Schr€ooger, 1998).

The elicitation of the MMN component was assessed

for each of the four deviance conditions (language-

familiar Standard vs. language-familiar Deviant,

language-familiar Standard vs. language-unfamiliar

Deviant, language-unfamiliar Standard vs. language-

familiar Deviant, and language-unfamiliar Standard vs.

language-unfamiliar Deviant) by comparing the deviantand corresponding control responses using dependent

t-tests (a level was set to p < :01). Further statistical

analyses were conducted using mixed repeated-measures

between-subject analyses of variance (ANOVA) with the

factors lexicality of the Deviant (within-subject; lan-

guage-familiar vs. language-unfamiliar Deviant), lexi-

cality of the Standard (within-subject; language-familiar

vs. language-unfamiliar Standard), and language group(between-subject; Hungarian vs. German). Analyses of

EEG topography additionally included as within-subject

factors the anterior–posterior (F-, C-, vs. P-lines) and

left–right (3-, z-, vs. 4-lines) directions on the scalp,

based on the responses obtained from the corresponding

3� 3 electrode grid between F3 and P4 (see Fig. 1 for a

rough illustration of the topography of the electrode

locations).When applicable, p values reflecting Greenhouse–

Geisser (G–G) corrected degrees of freedom and G–G �values are reported. Normalized data, used for the as-

sessment of topographical effects, were derived using

vector-length scaling, as was proposed by McCarthy

and Wood (1985).

3. Results

An average of 12.7% (STD 7.2%) of the trials per

participant were rejected from ERP analysis (range 3.7–

33.3%). The ERPs to all four Deviant conditions

showed identical, orderly early ERP components (see

Fig. 1 and the left-hand side of Fig. 2).

3.1. ERPs to standard stimuli

A comparison of the language-unfamiliar Standard

and language-familiar Standard ERP responses showed

two differences between the electric brain activity (see

the ERP responses and their difference wave in Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Grand-averaged (groups collapsed, see Section 2) ERPs from all recording locations for the frequently presented stimuli of the oddball

sequences, Standards: language-unfamiliar, pseudoword, Standards plotted with dashed, language-familiar, word, Standards with thin continuous,

and the difference waveforms of language-unfamiliar minus language-familiar Standards with thick continuous line. The two differences, termed First

and Second time window in the text, are marked by dark and light gray shading, respectively. The time at which the difference between the two word

items (‘‘Schaf’’ and ‘‘s�aas’’) commences is marked by dotted vertical lines.

60 T. Jacobsen et al. / Brain and Language 88 (2004) 54–67

The first difference was a phasic fronto-centrally nega-

tive going deflection (when calculated by subtracting the

language-familiar Standard responses from the lan-

guage-unfamiliar Standard responses) appearing be-tween 550 and 630ms from the stimulus onset (peak at

584ms). The second difference was a phasic broadly

distributed positive-going deflection appearing between

650 and 750ms from the stimulus onset (peak at

672ms). Both differences showed polarity reversal at the

mastoid leads.

3.1.1. First time window

An ANOVA test of the factors Standard (language-

familiar vs. language-unfamiliar), language group

(Hungarian vs. German), and left–right (the 3-, z-, vs. 4-

lines of electrodes) was done for the F-line of electrodes.

(For the results of the full ANOVA and the follow-up

analysis of the interactions, see Appendix A detailing the

full statistical analysis.) There was a significant effect of

Standard, F ð1; 18Þ ¼ 6:6, MSE ¼ :25, p < :05. No othereffect was significant, most F s < 1. The effect of Stan-

dards was also assessed at the mastoids using an AN-

OVA with the factors Standard (language-familiar vs.

language-unfamiliar), language group (Hungarian vs.

German), and left–right (left vs. right mastoid). A sig-

nificant main effect of the Standard was obtained,

F ð1; 18Þ ¼ 10:4, MSE ¼ :09, p < :01. One other effect

was also significant (see Appendix A). In sum, in this

earlier window, there was an effect of language-familiarversus language-unfamiliar Standards at frontal elec-

trodes and, with a polarity reversal at the mastoids.

3.1.2. Second time window

The ANOVA test of the factors Standard (language-

familiar vs. language-unfamiliar), language group

(Hungarian vs. German), left–right (3-, z-, vs. 4-lines),

and anterior–posterior (F-, C-, vs. P-lines) revealed asignificant main effect of Standard, F ð1; 18Þ ¼ 21:8,MSE ¼ :35, p < :001, as well as an interaction of Stan-

dard� left–right, F ð2; 36Þ ¼ 5:9, MSE ¼ :02, � ¼ :97,p < :01 (F ð2; 36Þ ¼ 4:5, MSE ¼ :11, � ¼ :97, p < :05 for

normalized data). The interaction was due to a stronger

effect along the midline than along the two lateral lines,

although the effect was significant for each of the three

anterior–posterior lines (see Appendix A for details onthe statistical analysis). The effect of the standards was

also assessed at the mastoids using an ANOVA with the

factors Standard (language-familiar vs. language-unfa-

miliar), language group (Hungarian vs. German), and

left–right (left vs. right mastoid). A significant main

Fig. 2. Frontal (Fz) grand-averaged (groups collapsed, see Section 2) ERPs (left-hand side) elicited by the Deviant (thick line) and the identical

stimulus Control (thin line) and their difference (right-hand side) at the frontal (Fz, thick line) and the left mastoid (Lm, thin line) leads. The four

conditions are displayed in separate rows. The onset of deviation (the point at which the Standards and Deviants started to differ) is marked by

dotted vertical lines. The full MMN responses (including the frontal as well as the reversed-polarity mastoid response) are marked by gray

shading.

T. Jacobsen et al. / Brain and Language 88 (2004) 54–67 61

effect of the Standard was obtained, F ð1; 18Þ ¼ 6:9,MSE ¼ :07, p < :05. One other effect was also significant

(see Appendix A). In sum, in this later window, there

was a broadly distributed effect of language-familiarversus language-unfamiliar Standards which was most

pronounced along the midline (Fz, Cz, and Pz) and

showed polarity reversal at the mastoids.

The different topography of the earlier and the later

difference suggests that they originate from, at least

partially, different brain areas. The polarity reversal

suggests that both effects were generated near the su-

pratemporal plane of temporal cortex. The presentfindings thus suggest that spoken language-familiar and

language-unfamiliar words invoke partially different

processes in the auditory cortex (see Fig. 1).

3.2. Mismatch negativity

As predicted, all four contrasts (2 types of Devi-

ants� 2 types of Standards) elicited significant MMN

responses (see Fig. 2, right-hand side), which was as-

sessed in the time window of 620–652ms from stimulus

onset (135–167ms after the onset of the auditory devi-

ation in the four items; see Section 2 and Table 1):

language-familiar Deviant in the context of language-familiar Standard, t ð19Þ ¼ 5:6, p < :001; language-

62 T. Jacobsen et al. / Brain and Language 88 (2004) 54–67

familiar Deviant in the context of language-unfamiliarStandard, t ð19Þ ¼ 4:5, p < :001; language-unfamiliar

Deviant in the context of language-familiar Standard,

t ð19Þ ¼ 5:1, p < :001; and language-unfamiliar Deviant

in the context of language-unfamiliar Standard,

Fig. 3. Grand-averaged (groups collapsed, see Section 2) MMN am-

plitudes in the four oddball conditions. Error markings on top of the

bars represent the standard error of the mean.

Fig. 4. Scalp distribution of the grand-averaged (groups collapsed, see Sectio

pseudoword, Standards (thick line), and the difference between MMNs elic

The onset of deviance is marked by dotted vertical lines.

t ð19Þ ¼ 3:9, p < :001. The MMN response had a higheramplitude in the context of language-familiar Standards

than language-unfamiliar Standards, irrespective of de-

viant type or language group (significant effect of

Standard context, F ð1; 18Þ ¼ 10:3, MSE ¼ :3, p < :01;no other effect approached significance, all Fs were <1).

In other words, MMN was larger in the native than in

the foreign language context (see Fig. 3 for the MMN

amplitudes).We asked whether the neural generators of this in-

crement in MMN are the same as or different from the

generators of the MMN elicited in the language-unfa-

miliar context. This was done by comparing the scalp

distribution of the difference between the MMNs from

the language-familiar context and the language-unfa-

miliar context with the MMN of the language-unfa-

miliar context MMN. If these scalp distributions differ,then one of the following two alternative statements is

true: (1) Deviants elicited a process in the language-fa-

miliar contexts which was additional to the processes

elicited by them in the language-unfamiliar contexts or

(2) a part of the deviance-related processes were different

in the language-familiar and language-unfamiliar con-

texts (i.e., the same Deviants were processed by different

sets of neurons depending on the lexicality of the con-text).

A repeated-measures ANOVA was conducted with

the factors condition (language-familiar context MMN

n 2) MMN component elicited in the context of language-unfamiliar,

ited in language-familiar and language-unfamiliar contexts (thin line).

T. Jacobsen et al. / Brain and Language 88 (2004) 54–67 63

minus language-unfamiliar context MMN vs. language-unfamiliar context MMN), anterior–posterior (the F-,

C-, vs. P-lines of electrodes) and left–right (the 3-, z-, vs.

4-lines of electrodes) using normalized data to eliminate

the main effect of condition. Significant interactions

between condition and topography were obtained: with

the anterior–posterior factor, F ð2; 38Þ ¼ 5:6, MSE ¼:88, � ¼ :58, p ¼ :024 and with the left–right factor,

F ð2; 38Þ ¼ 4:2, MSE ¼ :12, � ¼ :78, p ¼ :025. In short,the amplitude of the MMNs elicited in the context of

language-unfamiliar Standards was larger at frontal

sites whereas the amplitude of the MMN increment

(from the language-unfamiliar context to the language-

familiar context) was approximately evenly distributed

along the anterior–posterior direction (see Fig. 4). Also,

whereas the MMN elicited in the language-unfamiliar

context was approximately symmetrically distributedacross the two hemispheres, the difference between the

language-familiar and language-unfamiliar context

MMNs was larger over the right than the left hemi-

sphere (see Fig. 4). The observed interactions indicate

that the neural processes invoked by deviance in the

context of language-unfamiliar Standards were at least

partly different from those engaged by Deviants in the

context of language-familiar Standards (including thepossibility of additional neural generators being acti-

vated by change detection in the native-language context

compared with the foreign-language context).

4. Discussion

The effects of lexicality on the processing of spokenword-level items was investigated, when participants

had no task related to the stimuli. We found that the

default processing of frequently presented language-fa-

miliar words, Standards, involves partly different pro-

cesses than that of language-unfamiliar Standards.

Infrequently presented language-familiar words and

language-unfamiliar words, Deviants, presented in the

context of both language-familiar and language-unfa-miliar Standards elicited the MMN component. Neither

the amplitude nor the latency of the MMNs differed

between language-familiar Deviants and language-un-

familiar Deviants. However, the MMN amplitude elic-

ited in the oddball sequences having language-familiar

Standards was larger than that elicited in the sequences

with language-unfamiliar Standards. A topographic

analysis showed that processing Deviants in the lan-guage-familiar context involved at least partly different

processes compared with the deviance-related processes

occurring in the language-unfamiliar context. In the

following, we relate these results to the four hypotheses

described in Section 1.1 (the lexical trace, the supple-

mentary processing, the familiar context, and the lexical

context hypotheses).

4.1. The lexical trace hypothesis

The lexical trace hypothesis holds that deviancy in an

oddball sequence is processed differently for words and

pseudowords by virtue of the lexical status of the devi-

ants. When a word deviant is presented, a lexical

memory representation is pre-attentively activated and

used in the default memory-based comparison process

(reflected by MMN). Because words engage lexicalrepresentation in addition to the acoustic and phonetic

representations activated by pseudowords, the compar-

ison processes result in a stronger mismatch and thus

larger MMN amplitude for word than for pseudoword

deviants, irrespective of the lexical status of the in-se-

quence standard (Pulverm€uuller et al., 2001). However,

with both acoustic and language difference being con-

trolled, we found no evidence for the additional pro-cessing of language-familiar word Deviants as compared

with language-unfamiliar, or pseudoword, Deviants.

Thus the present results do not support the lexical trace

hypothesis.

4.2. The supplementary processing hypothesis

This hypothesis assumes that attempts at lexical ac-cess are (repeatedly) made by the system for every word-

like stimulus (whether it is a word or a pseudoword).

When lexical access fails for pseudoword Standards,

supplementary processing of these items takes place.

Additional processing leads to a more elaborate sensory

memory (or perhaps phonetic) representation for

pseudowords than for words, which results in a larger-

amplitude MMN component being elicited in the con-text of pseudoword than word standards (Diesch et al.

(1998)). The present results, which used appropriate

control for acoustic differences, did not support this

hypothesis, as we obtained opposite results: larger-am-

plitude MMNs to Deviants presented among language-

familiar word than language-unfamiliar, pseudoword,

Standards.

4.3. The familiar context hypothesis

The familiar context hypothesis assumes that the

auditory sensory memory representations created for

familiar sounds are more elaborate, richer in details,

sharper than the ones created for unfamiliar sounds. As

a consequence, when the standard sounds of an oddball

sequence are familiar to a participant, the resultingregularity representations contain more and better-

resolved details (see, e.g., Koelsch et al., 1999) as well as

the possibility of including more types of regularities

(e.g., Brattico et al., 2002) compared to unfamiliar

sounds. This results in a larger perceived difference

between the deviant and the standard sounds, which in

turn elicits MMNs of larger amplitude for deviants

64 T. Jacobsen et al. / Brain and Language 88 (2004) 54–67

appearing in familiar as opposed to unfamiliar con-texts. Results compatible with this hypothesis have

also been obtained for speech sounds (Ikeda, Hay-

ashi, Hashimoto, Otomo, & Kanno, 2002; N€aa€aat€aanenet al., 1997; Winkler et al., 1999b). Moreover, ex-

periments testing learning effects found an increase of

the MMN amplitude (in some cases the initial ap-

pearance of the MMN) when participants familiarized

themselves with complex sounds they have notpreviously encountered (Atienza & Cantero, 2001;

N€aa€aat€aanen et al., 1993; for a similar effect with speech

sounds, see Cheour et al., 1998; Kraus et al., 1995;

Winkler et al., 1999a).

The present results are compatible with the familiar

context hypothesis. MMNs of higher amplitude have

been elicited in the language-familiar (native language)

than in the language-unfamiliar (foreign language)context. The familiar context hypothesis, however, has

no specific predictions concerning either for the pro-

cessing of the frequently presented (standard) sounds

or for the scalp distribution of the MMNs elicited in

familiar vs. unfamiliar contexts. As post hoc specula-

tions, one may suggest that the differences found be-

tween the ERPs elicited by language-familiar versus

language-unfamiliar Standards could reflect moreelaborate processing of familiar Standards. Similarly,

one could explain the difference between the scalp

distributions obtained for MMNs elicited in the fa-

miliar and unfamiliar contexts as reflecting the detec-

tion of regularities only represented for familiar

Standards. However, these explanations are better

couched on linguistic processes, for which specific hy-

potheses have been given. Since the lexical contexthypothesis (see below) is a specific version of the more

general familiar context hypothesis, therefore, we can

regard the present results as being compatible with the

familiar context hypothesis, with the details of the

processes being better explained by the lexical context

hypothesis.

4.4. The lexical context hypothesis

This hypothesis suggests that the default processes

for repeated words and pseudowords differ by virtue

of the lexicality of these stimuli. Whereas word stan-

dards constitute a potentially meaningful setting in

which a verbal message may be expected, a pseudo-

word context does not. This can be expected to in-

fluence the processing of the repeated word stimuli perse. In the present study, the analysis of the ERPs

elicited by the Standards showed that language-fa-

miliar Standards are indeed processed differently than

language-unfamiliar Standards. The lexical context

hypothesis also maintains that change detection in a

language-familiar context includes processes dependent

on lexical representation, which may supersede or sumup with the similar acoustic and phonetic comparison

processes (see the analogous results for isolated vowels

in Winkler et al., 1999b). In accordance with this

prediction, the present results showed that word-level

Deviants elicited a higher-amplitude MMN in the

context of language-familiar than language-unfamiliar

Standards and that the deviance-related processing

was partly different in language-familiar as comparedto language-unfamiliar contexts. Although the present

results of the topographical differences cannot tell

whether the lexicon-related processes of change de-

tection in the language-familiar context were addi-

tional to those engaged in the language-unfamiliar

context or they partly or entirely superseded them,

both alternatives are compatible with the lexical con-

text hypothesis.The differences found in the ERP responses elicited

by Standards may reflect a default tuning to either

language-familiar or language-unfamiliar items. Such a

tuning process would help us in everyday situations,

when we want to be able to rapidly switch to a

meaningful stream of speech, which is not currently in

our focus of attention. Converging evidence was ob-

tained by Service et al. (submitted), who found thatoccasional phonotactically legal pseudowords embed-

ded in a sequence of phonotactically illegal non-words

elicit a specific ERP component even when the partic-

ipants have no task related to the speech stimuli. Ser-

vice et al.�s finding could be interpreted as a precursor

to the present ones: even when not attending to a given

stream of speech, we still establish whether its elements

are (1) legal and (2) meaningful in our own language.Default phonotactical and lexical monitoring of the

auditory environment allows one to flexibly and rap-

idly use the speech information available at any given

moment.

4.5. Conclusion

We found that frequently presented language-famil-

iar words are processed differently from language-un-

familiar words, pseudowords, even when participants

have no task related to them. Our results also showed

that the default memory-based processes of changedetection (reflected by the MMN ERP response) is

sensitive to the lexical status of frequently presented

word-level speech stimuli. The differences in processing

irrelevant language-familiar and language-unfamiliar

word stimuli suggest the existence of a lexical moni-

toring process, which parses items outside the current

focus of attention. However, it is also possible that the

effects shown by the present experiments are not entirelyof linguistic nature. They may represent a specific sub-

class of processes, which allow better default processing

T. Jacobsen et al. / Brain and Language 88 (2004) 54–67 65

of familiar auditory stimuli as opposed to unfamiliarones. This aspect of the present results will be further

investigated.

Appendix A. Details of the statistical data analyses

A.1. Standards

A.1.1. First time window

The ANOVA test of the factors Standard (within;language-familiar vs. language-unfamiliar), language

group (between; Hungarian vs. German), anterior–pos-

terior (within; the F-, C-, vs. P-lines of electrodes), and

left–right (within; the 3-, z-, vs. 4-lines of electrodes)

revealed a significant interaction between the stan-

dard� anterior–posterior, F ð2; 36Þ ¼ 7:3, MSE ¼ :06,� ¼ :64, p < :01 (F ð2; 36Þ ¼ 2:1, MSE ¼ :19, � ¼ :63,p ¼ :16 for normalized data). The interaction wassubsequently resolved for topography (see below). Fur-

thermore, this initial analysis revealed a main effect of

anterior–posterior, F ð2; 36Þ ¼ 34:8,MSE ¼ :63, � ¼ :59,p < :001, as well as interactions of Standard� group,

F ð1; 18Þ ¼ 7:7, MSE ¼ :78, p < :05, and Standard�group� anterior–posterior, F ð2; 36Þ ¼ 9:0, MSE ¼ :06,� ¼ :64, p < :01. None of these effects required further

analysis. The main effect of ERP amplitude betweensites (anterior, posterior) is not related to the experi-

mental conditions. The two interactions involving group

are confounded with a stimulus difference and are,

therefore, not interpretable. Note that this confound is

controlled in the relevant Standard� anterior–posterior

interaction.

Three separate mixed between-subject repeated-mea-

sures ANOVAs with the factors language group, Stan-dard, and left–right were computed for the F-, C-, and

P-lines in order to resolve the Standard� anterior–pos-

terior interaction of the former analysis for topography.

For the F-line, there was a significant effect of Standard,

F ð1; 18Þ ¼ 6:6, MSE ¼ :25, p < :05. No other effect was

significant, most F s < 1. There were no significant main

effects of Standard in the C- and P-line analyses. Non-

interpretable (see above) interactions of Stan-dard� group were obtained (C-line analysis, F ð1;18Þ ¼ 7:5, MSE ¼ :31, p ¼ :01; P-line analysis,

F ð1; 18Þ ¼ 12:9, MSE ¼ :34, p < :01). No other effects

were significant.

In the ANOVA with the factors Standard (within;

language-familiar vs. language-unfamiliar), language

group (between; Hungarian vs. German), and left–

right (within; left vs. right mastoid), in addition to thesignificant main effect of Standard (F ð1; 18Þ ¼ 10:4,MSE ¼ :09, p < :01; see the text), the main effect

of left–right was also significant, F ð1; 18Þ ¼ 5:8,MSE ¼ :02, p < :05. The latter effect is not related to

the experimental conditions. No other effects weresignificant.

A.1.2. Second time window

The ANOVA test of the factors Standard (within;

language-familiar vs. language-unfamiliar), language

group (between; Hungarian vs. German), left–right

(within; 3-, z-, vs. 4-lines), and anterior–posterior(within; F-, C-, vs. P-lines) revealed a significant main

effect of Standard, F ð1; 18Þ ¼ 21:8, MSE ¼ :35,p < :001, as well as an interaction of Standard� left–

right, F ð2; 36Þ ¼ 5:9, MSE ¼ :02, � ¼ :97, p < :01(F ð2; 36Þ ¼ 4:5, MSE ¼ :11, � ¼ :97, p < :05 for nor-

malized data). This interaction was subsequently re-

solved for topography (see below). Furthermore, the

initial analysis revealed main effects of anterior–poster-ior, F ð2; 36Þ ¼ 23:9, MSE ¼ :25, � ¼ :70, p < :001, andleft–right, F ð2; 36Þ ¼ 19:4,MSE ¼ :04, � ¼ 1:0, p < :001,as well as interactions of Standard� group, F ð1;18Þ ¼ 4:3, MSE ¼ :35, p ¼ :054, anterior–posterior�left–right, F ð4; 72Þ ¼ 10:5, MSE ¼ :008, � ¼ :55, p <:001, and Standard� group� left–right, F ð2; 36Þ ¼ 4:6,MSE ¼ :02, � ¼ :97, p < :001. None of these effects re-

quired further analysis. Main effects and interactions ofEEG amplitude between sites (anterior, posterior; left,

right) are not related to the experimental conditions.

The two interactions involving group are confounded

with a stimulus difference and are, therefore, not inter-

pretable. Note that this confound is controlled in the

relevant standard main effect and standard� anterior–

posterior interaction.

Three separate mixed between-subject repeated-mea-sures ANOVAs with the factors Standard, group, and

anterior–posterior were computed separately for the 3-,

z-, and 4-lines in order to resolve the Standard� ante-

rior–posterior interaction of the former analysis for to-

pography. The effect of the Standard was significant in

all three analyses. It was strongest along the midline,

F ð1; 18Þ ¼ 25:5,MSE ¼ :17, p < :001. In addition, there

was a main effect of anterior–posterior, F ð2; 36Þ ¼ 23:1,MSE ¼ :06, � ¼ :73, p < :001, and an interaction of

Standard� group F ð1; 18Þ ¼ 4:5, MSE ¼ :17, p < :05.No other effect was significant. For the 3-line the main

effect of the Standard was F ð1; 18Þ ¼ 18:8, MSE ¼ :09,p < :001. There was also an effect of anterior–posterior,

F ð2; 36Þ ¼ 13:3, MSE ¼ :07, � ¼ :70, p < :001. No other

effect was significant, most Fs were <1. At the 4-line the

effect of Standard was F ð1; 18Þ ¼ 16:3, MSE ¼ :13,p < :001. In addition, there was a main effect of

anterior–posterior, F ð2; 36Þ ¼ 33:0, MSE ¼ :06, � ¼ :74,p < :001, and an interaction of standard� group

F ð1; 18Þ ¼ 6:1, MSE ¼ :13, p < :05. No other effect was

significant.

The effect of the Standards was also assessed at the

mastoids using an ANOVAs with the factors Standard

66 T. Jacobsen et al. / Brain and Language 88 (2004) 54–67

(within; language-familiar vs. language-unfamiliar),language group (between; Hungarian vs. German), and

left–right (within; left vs. right mastoid). In addition to

the significant main effect of Standard (F ð1; 18Þ ¼ 6:9,MSE ¼ :07, p < :05, see the text), the main effect of

left–right was also significant, F ð1; 18Þ ¼ 18:9,MSE ¼ :02, p < :001. The latter main effect is not re-

lated to the experimental conditions. No other effects

were significant.

A.2. Mismatch negativity

The repeated-measures ANOVA with the factors

condition (language-familiar context minus language-

unfamiliar context MMN vs. language-unfamiliar con-text MMN), anterior–posterior (the F-, C-, vs. P-lines of

electrodes) and left–right (the 3-, z-, vs. 4-lines of elec-

trodes) using normalized data yielded two condi-

tion� topography interactions (see text). In addition, the

main effects of the topography factors were also signifi-

cant: anterior–posterior, F ð2; 38Þ ¼ 22:0, MSE ¼ :28,� ¼ :80, p < :001, and left–right, F ð2; 38Þ ¼ 7:6, MSE ¼:17, � ¼ :93, p < :01. These effects, however, are notrelated to the present conditions. No other effect was

significant, most F s < 1.

References

Aaltonen, O., Eerola, O., Hellstrom, �AA., Uusipaikka, E., & Lang, A.

H. (1997). Perceptual magnet effect in the light of behavioral and

psychophysiological data. Journal of the Acoustical Society of

America, 101, 1090–1106.

Alho, K. (1995). Cerebral generators of mismatch negativity (MMN)

and its magnetic counterpart (MMNm) elicited by sound changes.

Ear and Hearing, 16, 38–51.

American Electroencephalographic Society (1991). American electro-

encephalographic society guidelines for standard electrode position

nomenclature. Journal of Clinical Neurophysiology 8, 200–202.

Atienza, M., & Cantero, J. L. (2001). Complex sound processing

during human REM sleep by recovering information from long-

term memory as revealed by the mismatch negativity (MMN).

Brain Research, 901, 151–160.

Brattico, E., N€aa€aat€aanen, R., & Tervaniemi, M. (2002). Context effects

on pitch perception in musicians and non-musicians: Evidence

from ERP recordings. Music Perception, 19, 1–24.

Cheour, M., Ceponiene, R., Lehtokoski, A., Luuk, A., Allik, J., Alho,

K., & N€aa€aat€aanen, R. (1998). Development of language-specific

phoneme representations in the infant brain. Nature Neuroscience,

1, 351–353.

Cheour, M., Leppaenen, P. H. T., & Kraus, N. (2000). Mismatch

negativity (MMN) as a tool for investigating auditory discrimina-

tion and sensory memory in infants and children. Clinical Neuro-

physiology, 111, 4–16.

Cowan, N., Winkler, I., Teder, W., & N€aa€aat€aanen, R. (1993). Short- and

long-term prerequisites of the mismatch negativity in the auditory

event-related potential (ERP). Journal of Experimental Psychology:

Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 19, 909–921.

Cs�eepe, V., Osman-S�aagi, J., Moln�aar, M., & Gosy, M. (2001). Impaired

speech perception in aphasic patients: Event-related potential and

neuropsychological assessment. Neuropsychologia, 39, 1194–1208.

Dehaene-Lambertz, G. (1997). Electrophysiological correlates of cate-

gorical phoneme perception in adults. NeuroReport, 8, 919–924.

Diesch, E., Biermann, S., & Luce, T. (1998). The magnetic field elicited

by word and phonological non-words. NeuroReport, 9, 455–460.

Huotilainen, M., Kujala, A., & Alku, P. (2001). Long-term memory

traces facilitate short-term memory trace formation in audition in

humans. Neuroscience Letters, 310, 133–136.

Ikeda, K., Hayashi, A., Hashimoto, S., Otomo, K., & Kanno, A.

(2002). Asymmetrical mismatch negativity in humans as deter-

mined by phonetic but not physical difference. Neuroscience

Letters, 321, 133–136.

Korpilahti, P., Krause, C. M., Holopainen, I., & Lang, A. H. (2001).

Early and late mismatch negativity elicited by words and speech-

like stimuli in children. Brain and Language, 76, 332–339.

Koelsch, S., Schr€ooger, E., & Tervaniemi, M. (1999). Superior attentive

and pre-attentive auditory processing in musicians. NeuroReport,

10, 1309–1313.

Kraus, N., McGee, T. J., Carrell, T. D., & Sharma, A. (1995).

Neurophysiologic bases of speech discrimination. Ear and Hearing,

16, 19–37.

Kuhl, P. K. (1991). Human adults and infants show a �perceptualmagnet effect� for the prototypes of speech categories, monkeys do

not. Perception & Psychophysics, 50, 93–107.

McCarthy, G., & Wood, C. C. (1985). Scalp distributions of event-

related potentials: An ambiguity associated with analysis of

variance models. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophys-

iology, 62, 203–208.

Moray, N. (1959). Attention and dichotic listening: Affective cues and

the influence of instructions. Quarterly Journal of Experimental

Psychology, 11, 56–60.

N€aa€aat€aanen, R. (1992). Attention and brain function. Hillsdale, NJ:

Erlbaum.

N€aa€aat€aanen, R. (2001). The perception of speech sounds by the human

brain as reflected by the mismatch negativity (MMN) and its

magnetic equivalent (MMNm). Psychophysiology, 38, 1–21.

N€aa€aat€aanen, R., Lehtokoski, A., Lennes, M., Cheour-Luhtanen, M.,

Huotilainen, M., Iivonen, A., Vainio, M., Alku, P., Ilmoniemi, R.

J., Luuk, A., Allik, J., Sinkkonen, J., & Alho, K. (1997). Language-

specific phoneme representations revealed by electric and magnetic

brain responses. Nature, 385, 432–434.

N€aa€aat€aanen, R., Schr€ooger, E., Karakas, S., Tervaniemi, M., & Paavi-

lainen, P. (1993). Development of a memory trace for a complex

sound in the human brain. NeuroReport, 4, 503–506.

N€aa€aat€aanen, R., Terveniemi, M., Sussman, E., Paavilainen, P., &

Winkler, I. (2001). �Primitive intelligence� in the auditory cortex.

Trends in Neurosciences, 24, 282–288.

N€aa€aat€aanen, R., & Winkler, I. (1999). The concept of auditory stimulus

representation in cognitive neuroscience. Psychological Bulletin,

125, 826–859.

Phillips, C., Pellathy, T., Marantz, A., Yellin, E., Wexler, K., Poeppel,

D., McGinnis, M., & Roberts, T. (2000). Auditory cortex accesses

phonological categories: An MEG mismatch study. Journal of

Cognitive Neuroscience, 12, 1038–1055.

Picton, T. W., Alain, C., Otten, L., Ritter, W., & Achim, A. (2000).

Mismatch negativity: Different water in the same river. Audiology &

Neuro-Otology, 5, 111–139.

Pulverm€uuller, F., Kujala, T., Shtyrov, Y., Simola, J., Tiitinen, H.,

Alku, P., Alho, K., Martinkauppi, S., Ilmoniemi, R. J., &

N€aa€aat€aanen, R. (2001). Memory traces for words as revealed by

the mismatch negativity. NeuroImage, 14, 607–616.

Rinne, T., Alho, K., Alku, P., Holi, M., Sinkkonen, J., Virtanen, J.,

Bertrand, O., & N€aa€aat€aanen, R. (1999). Analysis of speech sounds is

left-hemisphere predominant at 100–150ms after sound onset.

NeuroReport, 10, 1113–1117.

Sams, M., Aulanko, R., Aaltonen, O., & N€aa€aat€aanen, R. (1990). Event-

related potentials to infrequent changes in synthesized phonetic

stimuli. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2, 344–357.

T. Jacobsen et al. / Brain and Language 88 (2004) 54–67 67

Sandridge, S., & Boothroyd, A. (1996). Using naturally produced

speech to elicit mismatch negativity. Journal of the American

Academy of Audiology, 7, 105–112.

Schr€ooger, E. (1998). Measurement and interpretation of the mismatch

negativity. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments & Computers,

30, 131–145.

Schr€ooger, E., Tervaniemi, M., & Huotilainen, M. (in press). Bottom-up

and top-down flow of information within auditory memory:

Electrophysiological evidence. In C. Kaernbach, E. Schr€ooger, &H. M€uuller (Eds.), Psychophysics beyond sensation: Laws and

invariants of human cognition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Service, E., Winkler, I., Kujala T., Maury, S., & N€aa€aat€aanen, R.

(submitted). Picking out one�s own language at a multi-lingual

cocktail party.

Sharma, A., & Dorman, M. F. (2000). Neurophysiologic correlates of

cross-language phonetic perception. Journal of the Acoustical

Society of America, 107, 2697–2703.

Szymanski, M. D., Yund, E. W., & Woods, D. L. (1999). Phonemes,

intensity and attention: Differential effects on the mismatch

negativity (MMN). Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,

106, 3492–3505.

Winkler, I., Karmos, G., & N€aa€aat€aanen, R. (1996). Adaptive modeling of

the unattended acoustic environment reflected in the mismatch

negativity event-related potential. Brain Research, 742, 239–

252.

Winkler, I., Kujala, T., Tiitinen, H., Sivonen, P., Alku, P., Lehtokoski,

A., Czigler, I., Cs�eepe, V., Ilmoniemi, R. J., & N€aa€aat€aanen, R. (1999a).

Brain responses reveal the learning of foreign language phonemes.

Psychophysiology, 36, 638–642.

Winkler, I., Lehtokoski, A., Alku, P., Vainio, M., Czigler, I., Csepe,

V., Aaltonen, O., Raimo, I., Alho, K., Lang, H., Iivonen, A., &

N€aa€aat€aanen, R. (1999b). Pre-attentive detection of vowel contrasts

utilizes both phonetic and auditory memory representations.

Cognitive Brain Research, 7, 357–369.

Wunderlich, J. L., & Cone-Wesson, B. K. (2001). Effects of stimulus

frequency and complexity on the mismatch negativity and other

components of the cortical auditory-evoked potential. Journal of

the Acoustic Society of America, 109, 1526–1537.

van Zuijen, T., Sussman, E., Winkler, I., N€aa€aat€aanen, R., Tervaniemi,

M. (submitted). Pre-attentive grouping of sequential sounds—An

event-related potential study comparing musicians and non-

musicians.