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Updated: Oct 5, 2025
Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
Published on: July 1, 2015
Neural detection of changes in amplitude rise time in infancy
Áine Ní Choisdealbha1, Adam Attaheri1, Sinead Rocha1
1Centre for Neuroscience in Education, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Insights
Infants as young as seven months show auditory mismatch responses to changes in speech sound rise times. This neural sensitivity to acoustic cues suggests early speech processing capabilities in infants.
Area of Science:
- Auditory Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Speech Perception
Background:
- Amplitude rise times are critical for speech rhythm perception and neural entrainment.
- Reduced sensitivity to rise time differences is linked to developmental language disorders.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate auditory mismatch responses to amplitude rise time changes in 7- and 11-month-old infants.
- To determine the developmental trajectory of neural processing for acoustic cues in early speech perception.
Main Methods:
- Event-related potential (ERP) paradigm with auditory oddball stimuli.
- Analysis of mismatch response (MMR) and mismatch negativity (MMN) in infants.
Main Results:
- Infants at both 7 and 11 months exhibited MMR to altered rise times.
- MMR amplitude was larger at 7 months compared to 11 months.
- At 11 months, a left-dominant MMN emerged, sensitive to rise time difference magnitude.
Conclusions:
- Neural processing of amplitude rise time changes is present by 7 months of age.
- Early neural sensitivity to acoustic cues like rise time may facilitate infant speech processing.
- Developmental changes in auditory processing, including lateralization, are evident by 11 months.
Abstract:
Amplitude rise times play a crucial role in the perception of rhythm in speech, and reduced perceptual sensitivity to differences in rise time is related to developmental language difficulties. Amplitude rise times also play a mechanistic role in neural entrainment to the speech amplitude envelope. Using an ERP paradigm, here we examined for the first time whether infants at the ages of seven and eleven months exhibit an auditory mismatch response to changes in the rise times of simple repeating auditory stimuli. We found that infants exhibited a mismatch response (MMR) to all of the oddball rise times used for the study. The MMR was more positive at seven than eleven months of age. At eleven months, there was a shift to a mismatch negativity (MMN) that was more pronounced over left fronto-central electrodes. The MMR over right fronto-central electrodes was sensitive to the size of the difference in rise time. The results indicate that neural processing of changes in rise time is present at seven months, supporting the possibility that early speech processing is facilitated by neural sensitivity to these important acoustic cues.
