TY  - JOUR
A1  - Yue, Jinxing
A1  - Bastiaanse, Roelien
A1  - Alter, Kai
T1  - Cortical plasticity induced by rapid Hebbian learning of novel tonal word-forms: Evidence from mismatch negativity
JF  - Brain & language : a journal of the neurobiology of language
N2  - Although several experiments reported rapid cortical plasticity induced by passive exposure to novel segmental patterns, few studies have devoted attention to the neural dynamics during the rapid learning of novel tonal word-forms in tonal languages, such as Chinese. In the current study, native speakers of Mandarin Chinese were exposed to acoustically matched real and novel segment-tone patterns. By recording their Mismatch Negativity (MMN) responses (an ERP indicator of long-term memory traces for spoken words), we found enhanced MMNs to the novel word-forms over the left-hemispheric region in the late exposure phase relative to the early exposure phase. In contrast, no significant changes were identified in MMN responses to the real word during familiarisation. Our results suggest a rapid Hebbian learning mechanism in the human neocortex which develops long-term memory traces for a novel segment-tone pattern by establishing new associations between the segmental and tonal representations. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
KW  - Language
KW  - Rapid learning
KW  - Hebbian learning
KW  - Event-related potential
KW  - Novel word
KW  - Mismatch Negativity (MMN)
KW  - Oddball paradigm
KW  - Lexical tone
KW  - Mandarin Chinese
Y1  - 2014
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2014.09.007
SN  - 0093-934X
SN  - 1090-2155
VL  - 139
SP  - 10
EP  - 22
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - San Diego
ER  -