Theta band (4-8 Hz) oscillations reflect syllables processing in Chinese spoken word production

doi:10.3724/SP.J.1041.2020.01199

Abstract

Abstract: Languages may differ in the proximate units of phonological encoding in spoken word production. It has been demonstrated that syllables are proximate units of phonological encoding in Chinese speech production. Previous studies report that the θ band oscillations have been associated with syllables processing in language comprehension. However, it remains unknown what are the neural oscillations for syllables retrieval in speech production. The present study aims to investigate the neural oscillations of syllables retrieval at the stage of phonological encoding in Chinese spoken word production.
We employed a masked priming paradigm and electrophysiological signals were recorded concurrently. In the task, participants were instructed to name pictures with disyllabic words preceded by briefly presented and masked prime words. Prime words were syllabically or phonemically related to the first syllable of targets or were unrelated. The experimental design includes prime type (syllable vs. phoneme), relatedness (related vs. unrelated), and repetition (first vs. second).
Behavioral data analysis showed a significant triple interaction among prime type, relatedness, and repetition. In the first repetition, naming latencies were faster in the syllabically related condition than in the unrelated condition, whereas latencies were longer in the phonemically related than in the unrelated condition. Time-frequency analysis also showed a significant interaction between prime type and relatedness in the time window of 300-600 ms after pictures onset. Specifically, theta band power was lower for syllabically related than unrelated while no significant differences between phonemically related and unrelated. Cluster based permutation test showed that, in the first repetition, syllabically related condition elicited lower θ band power than unrelated in the time window of 270-460 ms, while phoneme relatedness produced marginally higher θ band power than phoneme unrelatedness in the 340-390 ms time window. These effects were absent in the second repetition.
In sum, we found that the syllable priming effect was reflected by the decrease of θ oscillation in spoken word production in Chinese. Time-frequency analysis also revealed an early syllable priming effect and a late phonemic inhibition effect in Chinese spoken word production, which provides evidence for the proximate units principle.

Key words: speech production, syllable, theta band, time-frequency analysis

JIANG Yuchen, CAI Xiao, ZHANG Qingfang. (2020). Theta band (4-8 Hz) oscillations reflect syllables processing in Chinese spoken word production. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 52(10), 1199-1211.

Figures/Tables 6

Figure 1. Masked priming paradigm.

Figure 2. Naming latency under different experimental conditions. The error bar was 95% CI, * p < 0.05, n. s. not significant.

Table 1 ANOVA of θ band power activity in 0-600 ms, prime type × relatedness× repitition × ROI

Source of variation	0-100 ms		100-200 ms		200-300 ms		300-400 ms		400-500 ms		500-600 ms
Source of variation	F	?_p²	F	?_p²	F	?_p²	F	?_p²	F	?_p²	F	?_p²
prime type (1, 21)	8.08*	0.28	11.03**	0.35	5.18*	0.20	n.s.		n.s.		n.s.
relatedness (1, 21)	n.s.		n.s.		n.s.		n.s.		n.s.		n.s.
repetition (1, 21)	n.s.		n.s.		n.s.		n.s.		n.s.		n.s.
prime type × relatedness (1, 21)	n.s.		n.s.		n.s.		5.13*	0.20	6.41*	0.23	6.00*	0.22
prime type × relatedness × repetition (1, 21)	n.s.		n.s.		n.s.		n.s.		n.s.		n.s.
prime type × relatedness × repetition × ROI (5, 105)	n.s.		n.s.		n.s.		n.s.		n.s.		n.s.

Table 2 Syllable effect and phoneme effect in different frequency bands from 0 to 600 ms

Effect		Frequency band	0-300 ms		300-600 ms
First repetition	Syllable effect	δ, α, β	n.s.		n.s.
	Syllable effect	θ		270-300 ms p = 0.01		300-460 ms p = 0.01
	Phoneme effect	δ, α, β	n.s.		n.s.
	Phoneme effect	θ	n.s.			340-390 ms p = 0.052
Second repetition	Syllable effect	δ, α, β	n.s.		n.s.
	Syllable effect	θ	n.s.		n.s.
	Phoneme effect	δ, α, β	n.s.		n.s.
	Phoneme effect	θ	n.s.		n.s.

Figure 3. Event-related spectral perturbations of syllable-related and syllable-unrelated conditions in FC4. The dotted line represents the picture onset, and the black square indicated the significant difference between the conditions, p < 0.05, corrected in cluster level.

Figure 4. Event-related spectral perturbations of phoneme-related and phoneme-unrelated conditions in FC3. The dotted line represents the picture onset, and the grey square indicated the marginally significant difference between the conditions, 0.05 < p < 0.1, corrected in cluster level.

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