Selective brain response to voices at four months of age

Calce, Roberta Pia;Rekow, Diane;Barbero, Francesca;Kiseleva, Anna;Collignon, Olivier;et.al.
(2022) Frequency Following Response Workshop — Location: Barcelona, Spain (8.June.2022)

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Several studies have demonstrated the existence of voice preferring regions in the adult human brain- the " temporal voice areas" (TVAS). Yet, how early in development a selective categorical response to voice is observed remains poorly understood. We investigate voice categorization in the 4-month-old infant brain relying on a Fast Periodic Auditory Stimulation (FPAS) paradigm combined with scalp electroencephalography (EEG). This approach provides an objective marker of the brain' s automatic ability to categorize vocal information with a high signal-to-noise ratio within a short testing duration. Infants listened to a stream of heterogeneous sounds presented at 3.33 Hz to elicit a brain response at the same frequency in the EEG amplitude spectrum. Importantly, sequences were created so that voice stimuli appeared at 1.11 Hz. This voice presentation rate elicits an additional response in the EEG spectrum only if the brain discriminates voices from other sounds and generalizes them across heterogeneous exemplars. Results show a voice-selective neural response at 1.11 Hz over the temporal electrodes. Critically, the response is reduced when infants listened to a scrambled version of the stimuli with disrupted intelligibility but identical spectral content. These results suggest that the infant brain successfully discriminates vocal stimuli versus non-vocal stimuli and generalizes them across many exemplars, recognizing the voice excerpts as items of the same category. As the voice response is not explained by the spectral content of voice stimuli alone, this study provides evidence of high-level voice categorization as early as 4 months of age
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Calce, R. P., Rekow, D., Barbero, F., Kiseleva, A., Talwar, S., Leleu, A., Collignon, O., & et al. (2022). Selective brain response to voices at four months of age. Frequency Following Response Workshop, Barcelona, Spain. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/238380