Neural correlates of infant accent discrimination: an fNIRS study |
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| Authors: | Alejandrina Cristia Yasuyo Minagawa‐Kawai Natalia Egorova Judit Gervain Luca Filippin Dominique Cabrol Emmanuel Dupoux |
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| Institution: | 1. Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales – Ecole Normale Supérieure, , Paris, France;2. Neurobiology of Language, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, , Nijmegen, The Netherlands;3. Department of Psychology, Keio University, , Japan;4. Medical Research Council, Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, , Cambridge, UK;5. Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, , Paris, France;6. Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Université Paris Descartes, , France;7. AP‐HP Cochin Port Royal, , Paris, France |
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| Abstract: | The present study investigated the neural correlates of infant discrimination of very similar linguistic varieties (Quebecois and Parisian French) using functional Near InfraRed Spectroscopy. In line with previous behavioral and electrophysiological data, there was no evidence that 3‐month‐olds discriminated the two regional accents, whereas 5‐month‐olds did, with the locus of discrimination in left anterior perisylvian regions. These neuroimaging results suggest that a developing language network relying crucially on left perisylvian cortices sustains infants’ discrimination of similar linguistic varieties within this early period of infancy. |
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