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Updated: May 24, 2026

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
Published on: July 1, 2015
Cortical oscillations and speech processing: emerging computational principles and operations
Anne-Lise Giraud1, David Poeppel
1Inserm U960, Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France. annelise.giraud@gmail.com
Abstract:
Neuronal oscillations are ubiquitous in the brain and may contribute to cognition in several ways: for example, by segregating information and organizing spike timing. Recent data show that delta, theta and gamma oscillations are specifically engaged by the multi-timescale, quasi-rhythmic properties of speech and can track its dynamics. We argue that they are foundational in speech and language processing, 'packaging' incoming information into units of the appropriate temporal granularity. Such stimulus-brain alignment arguably results from auditory and motor tuning throughout the evolution of speech and language and constitutes a natural model system allowing auditory research to make a unique contribution to the issue of how neural oscillatory activity affects human cognition.
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