IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v3y2012i1d10.1038_ncomms1715.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ultra-rapid access to words in the brain

Author

Listed:
  • Lucy J MacGregor

    (MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit)

  • Friedemann Pulvermüller

    (MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit)

  • Maarten van Casteren

    (MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit)

  • Yury Shtyrov

    (MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit)

Abstract

Rapid information processing in the human brain is vital to survival in a highly dynamic environment. The key tool humans use to exchange information is spoken language, but the exact speed of the neuronal mechanisms underpinning speech comprehension is still unknown. Here we investigate the time course of neuro-lexical processing by analyzing neuromagnetic brain activity elicited in response to psycholinguistically and acoustically matched groups of words and pseudowords. We show an ultra-early dissociation in cortical activation elicited by these stimulus types, emerging ∼50 ms after acoustic information required for word identification first becomes available. This dissociation is the earliest brain signature of lexical processing of words so far reported, and may help explain the evolutionary advantage of human spoken language.

Suggested Citation

  • Lucy J MacGregor & Friedemann Pulvermüller & Maarten van Casteren & Yury Shtyrov, 2012. "Ultra-rapid access to words in the brain," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 3(1), pages 1-7, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:3:y:2012:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms1715
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1715
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms1715
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms1715?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ediz Sohoglu & Loes Beckers & Matthew H. Davis, 2024. "Convergent neural signatures of speech prediction error are a biological marker for spoken word recognition," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-17, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:3:y:2012:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms1715. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.