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Keeping Up With the White Rabbit: How Individual EEG Frequencies Relate to Processing of Accelerated Speech
Poster Session E, Friday, October 2, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm, Wangari Maathai
This poster is part of the Sandbox Series.
Joëlle Schroën1, Katharina Menn1, Maaike Nieuwenhuizen1, Melis Çetinçelik2, Martijn Baart1, Tineke Snijders1; 1Tilburg University, 2Maastricht University
To understand language, the brain needs to rapidly decode acoustic signals unfolding over time. Previous studies have shown that when speech rate accelerates, comprehension decreases [1,2], although individuals vary widely in how well they cope with accelerated speech. One possible explanation for this variability is that individuals differ in the intrinsic speed of their neural processing. If electrophysiological brain activity reflects the rate at which the auditory system can sample incoming information, individuals with faster neural operating frequencies may be better able to track and comprehend rapid speech. The current study investigates how individual differences in resting-state EEG frequencies relate to neural speech tracking and comprehension at accelerated speech rates. In this pre-registered ongoing study, Dutch native speakers (collected N = 93) listen to a Dutch translation of Alice in Wonderland presented at four speech rates ranging from approximately 3.5 to 16 syllables per second across eight 5-minute segments. We will assess behavioral comprehension via participants’ responses to multiple choice questions after each block and neural speech processing via temporal response functions (TRFs) to acoustic and linguistic speech features. Individual differences in neural operating frequencies will be operationalized from the individual alpha frequency and the aperiodic slope in resting-state EEG recordings. Preliminary analyses suggest that, in line with previous studies, behavioral comprehension decreases for higher speech rates while acoustic neural tracking increases (p < .001). Importantly, preliminary analyses further tentatively suggest a possible relationship between comprehension scores and individual alpha frequency in the resting-state EEG, with participants with faster individual alpha frequencies showing better comprehension at faster rates. As a next step, neural processing of speech will be assessed using TRFs to investigate how these differences relate to individual differences in resting-state EEG frequencies. This study will provide a large-scale conceptual replication of earlier findings [1], while extending them by potentially providing insight into how individual differences in neural timing constrain language processing. In the future, this framework may help investigate developmental and clinical differences in speech processing associated with altered resting-state neural activity. References [1] Verschueren, E., Gillis, M., Decruy, L., Vanthornhout, J., & Francart, T. (2022). Speech understanding oppositely affects acoustic and linguistic neural tracking in a speech rate manipulation paradigm. Journal of Neuroscience, 42(39), 7442-7453. [2] Christina Lubinus, Anne Keitel, Jonas Obleser, David Poeppel, Johanna M. Rimmele; Explaining flexible continuous speech comprehension from individual motor rhythms. Proc Biol Sci 1 March 2023; 290 (1994): 20222410.
Topic Areas: Speech Perception, Computational Approaches