Open access dataset integrating behavioral and EEG measures in Chinese spoken word production.

Speech production involves the transformation of abstract phonemes into concrete phonetic units through phonological encoding, a process where syllables play a particularly crucial role in Mandarin Chinese as a tonal language. Studies suggest that syllables serve as the primary units for phonological encoding, as evidenced by the syllable effect, where shared syllables between words lead to faster and more efficient processing in native Mandarin speakers. However, there is a lack of publicly available datasets that simultaneously capture behavioral and electroencephalogram (EEG) to study this process. This dataset, collected from 87 native Mandarin speakers across four experiments on Chinese spoken word production, integrates behavioral and EEG data, providing insights into the temporal dynamics of syllable and phonemes processing in speech production. Analysis on the accuracy and response latencies derived from behavioral recordings, along with event-related potential analysis of EEG data, reveals the existence of syllable effect. These findings advance our understanding of phonological encoding in tonal languages and enable cross-linguistic comparisons.