Poster D69, Wednesday, August 21, 2019, 5:15 – 7:00 pm, Restaurant Hall
Is developmental dyslexia children’s prosody processing modulated by syntactic structure? An ERP study on Chinese developmental dyslexia children
Jiexin Gu1,2, Qiu Meng1, Yamei Wang1, Yiming Yang1,2;1Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, 2Collaborative Innovation Center for Lanuage Ability, Xuzhou
It was proved that a deficit occurred during the prosody processing on the developmental dyslexia children (DDC). But whether or not the DDC’s prosody processing is modulated by syntactic structure still remains unclear. Therefore, we investigated the influence of syntax (normal vs. violation) on Chinese DDC’s prosody (normal vs. violation) processing through event related potentials (ERPs). In present ERP study, each thirteen 9-12 years old Chinese DDC and typical developmental children (TDC) were instructed to perform a semantic decision task on the sentences they listened. It was found that a different and earlier influence of syntax on Chinese DDC’s prosody processing (300-600ms) compared to the syntactic influence on Chinese TDC’s prosody processing (600-900ms). Specifically, for the DDC, only when the syntax was violated, the sentences with violated prosody elicited a more negative anterior negativity (AN, 300-600ms) than that of sentences with normal prosody; while for the TDC, only when the syntax was normal, the sentence with violated prosody elicited a more positive P800 (600-900ms) than that of sentences with normal prosody on the electrodes over the right hemisphere. Furthermore, be differ from the TDC, a main effect of prosody in the 300-600ms time window with a more negative AN was not found on the DDC. In addition, later than the TDC, the sentences with violated prosody elicited more positive P800 (900-1200ms) for the DDC relative to the sentences with normal prosody. The results showed that syntactic structure does modulate the prosodic processing for both the DDC and the TDC, but the pattern is distinct. It possibly indicates that a different priority on syntax and prosody occurred during the sentence processes across the two subject group, the DDC syntax priority whereas the TDC prosody priority. And the DDC’s phonological deficit affected the Chinese prosodic construction processes, which was reflected by the absence of prosodic effect on AN (300-600ms) for the DDC relative to the TDC.
Themes: Prosody, Syntax
Method: Electrophysiology (MEG/EEG/ECOG)