Neural plasticity revealed in perceptual training of a Japanese adult listener to learn American /I-r/ contrasts: a whole-head magnetoencephalography study

摘要

In this study, behavioral and brain measures were taken to assess the effects of training a Japanese adult subject to perceptually distinguish English /1/ and /union/. Behavioral data showed significant improvement in identifying both trained and untrained speech stimuli. Correspondingly, neuromagnetic results showed enhanced mismatch field responses in the left hemisphere and reduced activities in the right hemisphere. This pattern of neural plasticity was not observed for truncated non-speech stimuli.