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Updated: Dec 11, 2025
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Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
Published on: July 1, 2015
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Speech perception at birth: The brain encodes fast and slow temporal information
Laurianne Cabrera1, Judit Gervain1,2
1Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center, CNRS-Université de Paris, UFR Biomédicale, 45 rue des Saints Pères, 75006 Paris, France.
Science Advances
|August 25, 2020
Summary
Newborns can perceive speech sounds, even with an immature auditory system. Their brains can process complex acoustic cues, forming the basis for language acquisition.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Speech Science
Background:
- Infants possess remarkable speech perception skills despite immature auditory systems and limited language exposure at birth.
- Auditory processing is crucial for speech perception, involving the analysis of complex acoustic cues.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate neonates' ability to process complex acoustic cues in speech.
- To assess how different temporal modulations (amplitude modulation and frequency modulation) affect speech perception in newborns.
Main Methods:
- Combined near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and electroencephalography (EEG) to measure brain responses.
- Presented syllables differing in consonants under three conditions: original temporal modulations (AM and FM), fast and slow AM only, and slowest AM only (<8 Hz).
Main Results:
- EEG data revealed that neonates can encode consonants across all tested conditions, including those lacking fast temporal modulations, similar to adults.
- NIRS data indicated that fast and slow amplitude modulations activate distinct neural areas in the infant brain.
- Neonates' brains demonstrate the capacity to decompose speech's acoustic components.
Conclusions:
- The immature human brain is capable of processing complex acoustic features of speech, essential for language learning.
- Different neural pathways are involved in processing various temporal modulations within speech signals.
- These findings provide insights into the foundational neural mechanisms supporting early language acquisition.
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