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Updated: Aug 4, 2026

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
Published on: July 1, 2015
Influence of language structure on brain-behavior development
J S Buchwald1, D Guthrie, J Schwafel
1Department of Physiology, UCLA School of Medicine.
Abstract:
Lack of exposure to specific sensory patterns during critical periods of development can result in a lack of responsiveness to those stimuli in adulthood. The present study extends these observations to native speakers of Japanese, a language which does not contain the contrastive /r/ and /l/ sounds present in English. Both electrophysiological (P3 event-related evoked potential) and behavioral results indicate deficient or absent discrimination of /r/ versus /l/ sounds in Japanese adults compared to native speakers of English. Thus, language structure appears to provide a subtle yet measurable effect on specific aspects of brain development and function.
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