Rights statement: © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Final published version, 1.45 MB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY-NC-ND: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - By the sound of it
T2 - an ERP investigation of human action sound processing in 7-month-old infants
AU - Geangu, Elena
AU - Quadrelli, Ermanno
AU - Lewis, James W.
AU - Cassia, Viola Macchi
AU - Turati, Chiara
N1 - © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
PY - 2015/4
Y1 - 2015/4
N2 - Recent evidence suggests that human adults perceive human action sounds as a distinct category from human vocalizations, environmental, and mechanical sounds, activating different neural networks (Engel et al., 2009 and Lewis et al., 2011). Yet, little is known about the development of such specialization. Using event-related potentials (ERP), this study investigated neural correlates of 7-month-olds’ processing of human action (HA) sounds in comparison to human vocalizations (HV), environmental (ENV), and mechanical (MEC) sounds. Relative to the other categories, HA sounds led to increased positive amplitudes between 470 and 570 ms post-stimulus onset at left anterior temporal locations, while HV led to increased negative amplitudes at the more posterior temporal locations in both hemispheres. Collectively, human produced sounds (HA + HV) led to significantly different response profiles compared to non-living sound sources (ENV + MEC) at parietal and frontal locations in both hemispheres. Overall, by 7 months of age human action sounds are being differentially processed in the brain, consistent with a dichotomy for processing living versus non-living things. This provides novel evidence regarding the typical categorical processing of socially relevant sounds.
AB - Recent evidence suggests that human adults perceive human action sounds as a distinct category from human vocalizations, environmental, and mechanical sounds, activating different neural networks (Engel et al., 2009 and Lewis et al., 2011). Yet, little is known about the development of such specialization. Using event-related potentials (ERP), this study investigated neural correlates of 7-month-olds’ processing of human action (HA) sounds in comparison to human vocalizations (HV), environmental (ENV), and mechanical (MEC) sounds. Relative to the other categories, HA sounds led to increased positive amplitudes between 470 and 570 ms post-stimulus onset at left anterior temporal locations, while HV led to increased negative amplitudes at the more posterior temporal locations in both hemispheres. Collectively, human produced sounds (HA + HV) led to significantly different response profiles compared to non-living sound sources (ENV + MEC) at parietal and frontal locations in both hemispheres. Overall, by 7 months of age human action sounds are being differentially processed in the brain, consistent with a dichotomy for processing living versus non-living things. This provides novel evidence regarding the typical categorical processing of socially relevant sounds.
KW - Human sounds
KW - Infancy
KW - Human vocalizations
KW - Cerebral specialization
KW - Neurodevelopment
KW - Categorical perception
U2 - 10.1016/j.dcn.2015.01.005
DO - 10.1016/j.dcn.2015.01.005
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 25732377
VL - 12
SP - 134
EP - 144
JO - Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
JF - Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
SN - 1878-9293
ER -