Comparative study of event-related potential responses within syllables of intra and inter phoneme classes

Abstract

The present study was carried out to assess the signature neural dynamics as evinced through event-related potential (ERP) responses of the P300 waveform across different inter and intra phoneme consonant classes and to quantify the differential neural dynamical response in real-time. The ERP responses to non-sense three-syllable consonantvowel transitions CVCVCV non-words were recorded on 26 healthy individuals of either sex with an age group of 18–25 years. The first syllable of the non-sense word was always fixed, and the ERP responses of the middle syllable were recorded at the phoneme level, and the ERP responses elicited by the middle syllable were evaluated. The results of the present study documented that different consonant phoneme classes (plosives, fricatives, affricatives, liquids, and nasals) elicited differential neural dynamical responses as observed through the P300 waveform response, exhibiting a significant difference in P300 waveform amplitude across the fricatives vs. nasals experimental design.