The origins and development of speech envelope tracking during the first months of life.

ABSTRACT: When humans listen to speech, their neural activity tracks the slow amplitude fluctuations of the speech signal over time, known as the speech envelope. Studies suggest that the quality of this tracking is related to the quality of speech comprehension. However, a critical unanswered question is how envelope tracking arises and what role it plays in language development. Relatedly, its causal role in comprehension remains unclear, as some studies have found it to be present even for unintelligible speech. Using electroencephalography, we investigated whether the neural activity of newborns and 6-month-olds is able to track the speech envelope of familiar and unfamiliar languages in order to explore the developmental origins and functional role of envelope tracking. Our results show that am

SUBMITTER: Ortiz Barajas MC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7847966 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature