Rapid integration of speaker accent during morphosyntactic processing

Abstract

Listeners take multiple sources of information into account when processing spoken language. This includes the speaker’s accent, which affects the on-line processing of many aspects of language, including morphosyntax. This study investigated listeners’ neural responses to subject-verb agreement errors in native vs. Mandarin-accented English. The error types differed in typicality: Errors of omission, but not errors of commission, are frequently produced by Mandarin-accented English speakers. Different error types elicited different neural responses in native vs. foreign-accented speech. Errors of omission elicited a P600 in native speech and no response in foreign-accented speech, while errors of commission elicited an N400 in native speech and a sustained negativity, beginning before the overt violation, in foreign-accented speech. This illustrates the influence of speaker accent on morphosyntactic processing and suggests that, while listeners are sensitive to error typicality, factors such as the perceptual salience of the violation may also affect neural responses.