Projects per year
Abstract
Formation of neural mechanisms for morphosyntactic processing in young children is still poorly understood. Here, we addressed neural processing and rapid online acquisition of familiar and unfamiliar combinations of morphemes. Three different types of morphologically complex words - derived, inflected, and novel (pseudostem + real suffix) - were presented in a passive listening setting to 16 typically developing 3-4-year old children (as part of a longitudinal Helsinki SLI follow-up study). The mismatch negativity (MMN) component of event-related potentials (ERP), an established index of long-term linguistic memory traces in the brain, was analysed separately for the initial and final periods of the exposure to these items. We found MMN response enhancement for the inflected words towards the end of the recording session, whereas no response change was observed for the derived or novel complex forms. This enhancement indicates rapid build-up of a new memory trace for the combination of real morphemes, suggesting a capacity for online formation of whole-form lexicalized representations as one of the morphological mechanisms in the developing brain. Furthermore, this enhancement increased with age, suggesting the development of automatic morphological processing circuits in the age range of 3-4 years.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 107309 |
Journal | Neuropsychologia |
Volume | 138 |
Number of pages | 9 |
ISSN | 0028-3932 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 17 Feb 2020 |
MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Fields of Science
- 515 Psychology
- Lexical memory traces
- Morphologically complex words
- Lexical MMN
- Neurocognitive development
- NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL EVIDENCE
- DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY
- AFFIXAL HOMONYMY
- NEURAL DYNAMICS
- LANGUAGE
- ACQUISITION
- BRAIN
- FINNISH
- REPRESENTATION
- CONSOLIDATION
- 6162 Cognitive science
Projects
- 1 Finished
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Rapid formation of language-related memory circuits in the human neocortex
Leminen, A., Balla, V. & Shtyrov, Y.
01/01/2018 → 31/12/2021
Project: University of Helsinki Three-Year Research Project