The influence of language familiarity on voice discrimination: Divergent and shared neural mechanisms

IF 2.4 2区心理学 Q1 AUDIOLOGY & SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY

Brain and Language Pub Date : 2026-02-01 Epub Date: 2025-12-04 DOI:10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105676

Xueping Hu , Yiming Yang , Lijun Wang , Na Hu , Zhenzhen Xu , Yanqing Wang , Lili Ming , Antao Chen

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Abstract

Language familiarity significantly modulates speaker discrimination, with listeners demonstrating superior performance for familiar versus unfamiliar languages. To address the confound of speech content acoustics in prior research, this fMRI study investigated the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying this effect using identical speech content across three languages of varying listener proficiency. Behaviorally, familiar language discrimination elicited faster responses and higher accuracy. Neurally, bilateral insula and anterior cingulate cortex activation during different-speaker trials intensified as language familiarity decreased. The left rostrolateral prefrontal cortex was specifically engaged for unfamiliar voice discrimination and sensitive to speaker identity. Conjunction and representational similarity analyses across languages revealed engagement of voice-selective, cognitive control, and semantic processing regions, with high cross-language neural representational similarity specifically localized to the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and left inferior frontal gyrus. These findings provide the evidence under speech-content-matched conditions demonstrating that speaker discrimination relies on both acoustic voice processing regions and cognitive control networks implementing top-down modulation, the intensity of which is inversely proportional to language familiarity level.

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语言熟悉度对声音辨别的影响：不同与共享的神经机制

语言熟悉度显著调节说话者歧视，听者在熟悉语言和不熟悉语言时表现出更好的表现。为了解决先前研究中语音内容声学的混淆，本fMRI研究使用不同听者熟练程度的三种语言的相同语音内容来研究这种效应背后的认知和神经机制。在行为上，熟悉的语言辨别引起了更快的反应和更高的准确性。神经上，在不同说话者的实验中，双侧脑岛和前扣带皮层的激活随着语言熟悉程度的降低而增强。左侧前额叶外侧皮层特别参与不熟悉的声音识别和说话人身份敏感。跨语言的连接和表征相似性分析揭示了语音选择、认知控制和语义处理区域的参与，高度的跨语言神经表征相似性特别定位于右侧背外侧前额叶皮层和左侧额下回。这些发现为语音内容匹配条件下的说话者识别提供了证据，表明说话者识别依赖于声学语音处理区域和实施自上而下调制的认知控制网络，其强度与语言熟悉程度成反比。

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来源期刊

Brain and Language 医学-神经科学

CiteScore

4.50

自引率

8.00%

发文量

审稿时长

20.5 weeks

期刊介绍： An interdisciplinary journal, Brain and Language publishes articles that elucidate the complex relationships among language, brain, and behavior. The journal covers the large variety of modern techniques in cognitive neuroscience, including functional and structural brain imaging, electrophysiology, cellular and molecular neurobiology, genetics, lesion-based approaches, and computational modeling. All articles must relate to human language and be relevant to the understanding of its neurobiological and neurocognitive bases. Published articles in the journal are expected to have significant theoretical novelty and/or practical implications, and use perspectives and methods from psychology, linguistics, and neuroscience along with brain data and brain measures.