Wichian Sittiprapaporn, Chittin Chindaduangratn, and Naiphinich Kotchabhakdi

pp. 779 - 786

Abstract

Mismatch negativity (MMN), a primary response to an acoustic change and an index of sensory
memory, was used to investigate the processing of the discrimination between familiar and unfamiliar
Consonant-Vowel (CV) speech contrasts. The MMN was elicited by rare familiar words presented among
repetitive unfamiliar words. Phonetic and phonological contrasts were identical in all conditions. MMN
elicited by the familiar word deviant was larger than that elicited by the unfamiliar word deviant. The
presence of syllable contrast did significantly alter the word-elicited MMN in amplitude and scalp voltage
field distribution. Thus, our results indicate the existence of word-related MMN enhancement largely independent of the word status of the standard stimulus. This enhancement may reflect the presence of a longterm memory trace for familiar spoken words in tonal languages.