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Presented by: Kristen A Mitchell

brainstem responses to voice pitch in American and Chinese newborns to four different Mandarin Chinese tones. Presented by: Kristen A Mitchell. Voice Pitch. Voice pitch is used to help with speech understanding

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Presented by: Kristen A Mitchell

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  1. brainstem responses to voice pitch in American and Chinese newborns to four different Mandarin Chinese tones Presented by: Kristen A Mitchell

  2. Voice Pitch • Voice pitch is used to help with speech understanding • Voice pitch can convey different meanings in regards to tonal and non-tonal languages • Non-tonal language • English • We’re going to the mall today vs. We’re going to the mall today? • Tonal language • Mandarin Chinese • yi¹ vs. yi² vs. yi³ vs. yi4

  3. Voice pitch: are we born with ability? • Eimas et al., 1971 • Newborn infants have the ability to differentiate between the different adult phonemes • Kuhl 2010 • Newborns and young infants have the ability to discriminate between nonnative speech sounds without any prior experience • Evidence of “biological capacity” model

  4. Frequency-Following response • FFR is a scalp-recorded, non-invasive, electrophysiological measure that can be used to provide information about pitch coding at the level of the brainstem • Produced when low-frequency acoustic stimuli is presented to the auditory system • Synchronous electrical activity corresponds to each wave in the acoustic signal Gardi et. al., (1979); Krishnan (2002); Jeng et. al., (2011)

  5. Why is FFR important? • It canhelp identify populations with autism spectrum disorders and reading and spelling difficulties • It can help make direct comparisons with adults Russo et. al., (2008); Chandrasekaran et al., (2009)

  6. Literature Jeng et. al., (2011)

  7. Current Study • Aims • Determine if we can record the FFR of newborn infants to voice pitch using four different Mandarin Chinese tones • Determine if there will be a difference in the FFR of newborn infants from two linguistic backgrounds • Hypothesis • We will be able to record the FFR of newborn infants to voice pitch using four different Mandarin Chinese tones • However, we believe that tone 2 will elicit the strongest response in both American and Chinese newborn infants • Based on the “biological capacity” model, there will be no difference in the voice-pitch processing of American and Chinese newborn infants during their first week of life

  8. Methods

  9. Methods: Participants • Eighty participants • 40 native speakers of Mandarin Chinese (Taiwan Hospital) • 40 native speakers of American English (O’Bleness Memorial Hospital) • Normal hearing • Assessed by an automated auditory brainstem response screening tool (ALGO 3i) • Free of any neurological disorders or newborn infant hearing risk factors through self-report

  10. Methods: stimulus presentation • Four different Mandarin Chinese tones that mimic the English vowel /i/ • /yi¹/-clothing (flat pitch) • /yi²/-aunt (unidirectional rising pitch) • /yi³/- chair (bidirectional falling-rising pitch) • /yi4/- easy (unidirectional falling pitch)

  11. Methods: Stimulus Presentation • Recorded by a male Mandarin speaker • Duration: 250 msec • Stimulus envelope: 10 msec rise and fall time • Sampled: 40,000 samples/second • Neuroscan Acquire v4.5 software • Controlled stimulus presentation and trigger synchronization • Silent interval: 45 msec between onset and offset • Repetition rate: 3.39/second

  12. Methods: Stimulus presentation • Presentation • Stimulus to the right ear • Using an ER-3A transducer and an ER3-14D2 infant ear tip • Intensity • 65 dB SPL • Polarity • Alternating polarity

  13. Methods: Recording parameters • Recording • Quiet rooms of the nurseries at the respective hospitals in which the infants were born • Tested between 1-3 days old • Resting position • Eyes completely closed • Fast asleep • Three gold-plated electrodes • Midline of the forehead (non-inverting) • Right mastoid (inverting) • Left mastoid (ground) • Impedance < 3 kΩ • Amplified • Filtered: 0.05-3500 Hz • Digitized: 20,000 samples/second

  14. Methods: Data Analysis • Data analyzed using MATLAB • Band-passed filtered: using a brick-wall, linear phase finite impulse response filter (100-1500 Hz, 500th order) • Segmented into 295 msec in length • Sweep were rejected if voltages were >25μV • 4,000 sweeps collected for each infant • Short-term autocorrelation algorithm • Used to estimate the f0 contours of the recordings

  15. Methods: Data Analysis • Objective measures • Frequency error: represents the pitch-encoding accuracy during the stimulus presentation • Slope error: indicates how the pitch contours are preserved in the brainstem • Tracking accuracy: denotes the overall faithfulness of pitch tracking between the stimulus and response f0 contours • Pitch strength: measures the magnitude of the neural-phase locking to the f0 contour of the stimulus waveform • A Hierarchical Linear Model • Determine significance between the American and Chinese infants • Statistical significance p <0.05

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