Brain activation for consonants and vowels.

Full Abstract

Previous behavioral and electrophysiological studies have shown dissociation between consonants and vowels. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate whether vowel and consonant processing differences are expressed in the neuronal activation pattern and whether they are modulated by task. The experimental design involved reading aloud and lexical decision on visually presented pseudowords created by transposing or replacing consonants or vowels in words. During reading aloud, changing vowels relative to consonants increased activation in a right middle temporal area previously associated with prosodic processing of speech input. In contrast, during lexical decision, changing consonants relative to vowels increased activation in a right middle frontal area associated with inhibiting go-responses. The task-sensitive nature of these effects demonstrates that consonants and vowels differ at a processing, rather than stimulus, level. We argue that prosodic processing of vowel changes arise during self-monitoring of speech output, whereas greater inhibition of go-responses to consonant changes follows insufficient lexico-semantic processing when nonwords looking particularly like words must be rejected. Our results are consistent with claims that vowels and consonants place differential demands on prosodic and lexico-semantic processing, respectively. They also highlight the different types of information that can be drawn from functional imaging and neuropsychological studies.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Carreiras, Manuel (M); Price, Cathy J (CJ);

Affiliation: Instituto de Tecnologías Biomédicas, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, 38205, Spain. mcarreir(-atsign-)ull.es

Grants: (Agency:United Kingdom Wellcome Trust)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) (Cereb Cortex), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-Jul; vol 18 (issue 7) : pp 1727-35

Dates: Created 2008/06/18; Completed 2008/08/21;

PMID: 18234690, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Brain Mapping
Cerebral Cortex - physiology
Female
Humans
Male

Male
Middle Aged
Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology
Reading
Semantics
Speech - physiology

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.