Neurophysiological investigation of phonological input: aging effects and development of normative data

The current study investigated attended and unattended auditory phoneme discrimination using the P300 and Mismatch Negativity event-related potentials (ERPs). Three phonemic contrasts present in the Dutch language were compared. Additionally, auditory word recognition was investigated by presenting rare pseudowords among frequent words. Two main goals were: (1) obtain normative data for ERP latencies (ms) and amplitudes (μV) and (2) examine aging influences. Seventy-one healthy subjects (21-83 years) were included. During phoneme discrimination aging was associated with increased latencies and decreased amplitudes. However, a discrepancy between attended and unattended processing, as well as between phonemic contrasts, was found. During word recognition aging only had an impact on ERPs elicited by real words, indicating that mainly semantic processes were altered leaving lexical processes unharmed. Early sensory-perceptual processes, reflected by N100 and P50, were free from aging influences. In future, neurophysiological normative data can be applied in the evaluation of acquired language disorders.