Auditory Event-related Potentials for Word Stimuli in Kannada Language Among Native Kannada Speakers with Dementia

The P300 is a positive auditory event-related potential appearing around 300 msec post-oddball stimulus onset. Tone and monosyllabic stimuli have been widely used in P300 research, providing valuable insights into auditory perception, phoneme discrimination, language processing, and other cognitive processes. Bi-syllabic minimal pairs may be more challenging for some individuals because they require processing and discrimination of more complex phonemic structures. The aim of the study was to elicit and analyze the auditory event-related potentials for bi-syllabic word stimuli in the Kannada language among individuals with dementia.

The prospective study was conducted at the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology. Ten native Kannada language speakers (five male; and five female) diagnosed with dementia, aged 55-70 years, were the participants. The naturally produced and recorded CVCV (Consonant vowel consonant vowel) tokens (/ko:ti/ and /ko:thi/ pair; /a: me/ and /a:ne pair) in Kannada were used in the auditory oddball paradigm.

The waveforms with positive peak for word (PPW) with clear morphology were used to obtain the latency and amplitude. Mean and Standard deviation (SD) value for the latency of the PPW was 545 ± 38 msec and the amplitude value of PPW was 2.5 ± 1.5 µV.

The present study showed that when lengthier speech stimulus duration was used, the latency value of auditory event-related potential was higher. The study also showed that PPW is a reliable peak that could be used in the clinical population.