Long-term memory traces for familiar spoken words in tonal languages as revealed by the Mismatch Negativity

Mismatch negativity (MMN), a primary response to an acoustic change and an index of sensory memory, was used to investigate the processing of the discrimination between familiar and unfamiliar Consonant-Vowel (CV) speech contrasts. The MMN was elicited by rare familiar words presented among repetitive unfamiliar words. Phonetic and phonological contrasts were identical in all conditions. MMN elicited by the familiar word deviant was larger than that elicited by the unfamiliar word deviant. The presence of syllable contrast did significantly alter the word-elicited MMN in amplitude and scalp voltage field distribution. Thus, our results indicate the existence of word-related MMN enhancement largely independent of the word status of the standard stimulus. This enhancement may reflect the presence of a longterm memory trace for familiar spoken words in tonal languages