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Brain Sciences
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Language Perception and Processing
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Language Perception and Processing

A special issue of Brain Sciences (ISSN 2076-3425). This special issue belongs to the section "Neurolinguistics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 27 March 2026 | Viewed by 3598

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Ratree Wayland

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Linguistics, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-5454, USA
Interests: experimental phonetics; cross-linguistic speech perception; lexical tone processing and acquisition
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Language perception and processing are essential to how we communicate and understand the world around us. These processes involve a complex interaction of sensory inputs, cognitive functions, and neural activity, enabling us to make sense of speech, text, and sign language. Whether interpreting subtle differences in spoken tone or recognizing written words, humans rely on an intricate and adaptive system for understanding language.

This Special Issue of Brain Sciences gathers research examining how language perception and processing work across a variety of contexts and populations. From adaptation to noisy listening environments by both native and non-native speakers alike to the challenges faced by individuals with neurodevelopmental or neurodegenerative conditions, these studies shed light on the diversity and resilience of language processing. They also explore how sensory and cognitive factors influence our ability to perceive language in its many forms.

By focusing on these diverse perspectives, this collection aims to deepen our understanding of the processes that enable language and inspire new directions for research in this exciting field.

Prof. Dr. Ratree Wayland
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Brain Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • language
  • cognitive mechanism
  • neural mechanism
  • speech
  • perception
  • processing

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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22 pages, 2431 KB  
Article
Perceptual Plasticity in Bilinguals: Language Dominance Reshapes Acoustic Cue Weightings
by Annie Tremblay and Hyoju Kim
Brain Sci. 2025, 15(10), 1053; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci15101053 - 27 Sep 2025
Viewed by 423
Abstract
Background/Objectives: Speech perception is shaped by language experience, with listeners learning to selectively attend to acoustic cues that are informative in their language. This study investigates how language dominance, a proxy for long-term language experience, modulates cue weighting in highly proficient Spanish–English bilinguals’ [...] Read more.
Background/Objectives: Speech perception is shaped by language experience, with listeners learning to selectively attend to acoustic cues that are informative in their language. This study investigates how language dominance, a proxy for long-term language experience, modulates cue weighting in highly proficient Spanish–English bilinguals’ perception of English lexical stress. Methods: We tested 39 bilinguals with varying dominance profiles and 40 monolingual English speakers in a stress identification task using auditory stimuli that independently manipulated vowel quality, pitch, and duration. Results: Bayesian logistic regression models revealed that, compared to monolinguals, bilinguals relied less on vowel quality and more on pitch and duration, mirroring cue distributions in Spanish versus English. Critically, cue weighting within the bilingual group varied systematically with language dominance: English-dominant bilinguals patterned more like monolingual English listeners, showing increased reliance on vowel quality and decreased reliance on pitch and duration, whereas Spanish-dominant bilinguals retained a cue weighting that was more Spanish-like. Conclusions: These results support experience-based models of speech perception and provide behavioral evidence that bilinguals’ perceptual attention to acoustic cues remains flexible and dynamically responsive to long-term input. These results are in line with a neurobiological account of speech perception in which attentional and representational mechanisms adapt to changes in the input. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Language Perception and Processing)
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19 pages, 1603 KB  
Article
Cross-Linguistic Influences on L2 Prosody Perception: Evidence from English Interrogative Focus Perception by Mandarin Listeners
by Xing Liu, Xiaoxiang Chen, Chen Kuang and Fei Chen
Brain Sci. 2025, 15(9), 1000; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci15091000 - 16 Sep 2025
Viewed by 527
Abstract
Background/Objectives: This study sets out to explore how L1 Mandarin speakers with varying lengths of L2 experience perceived English focus interrogative tune, L*H-H%, within the framework of the autosegmental–metrical model. Methods: Eighteen Mandarin speakers with varying lengths of residence in the United States [...] Read more.
Background/Objectives: This study sets out to explore how L1 Mandarin speakers with varying lengths of L2 experience perceived English focus interrogative tune, L*H-H%, within the framework of the autosegmental–metrical model. Methods: Eighteen Mandarin speakers with varying lengths of residence in the United States and eighteen English native speakers were invited to perceive prosodic prominence and judge the naturalness of focus prosody tunes. Results: For the perception of on-focus pitch accent L*, Mandarin speakers performed well in the prominence detection task but not in the focus identification task. For post-focus edge tones, we found that phrase accents were more susceptible to L1 influences than boundary tones due to the varying degrees of cross-linguistic similarity between these intonational categories. The results also show that even listeners with extended L2 experience were not proficient in their perception of L2 interrogative focus tunes. Conclusions: This study reveals the advantage of considering the degree of L1-L2 similarity and the necessity to examine cross-linguistic influences on L2 perception of prosody separately in phonological and phonetic dimensions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Language Perception and Processing)
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34 pages, 1876 KB  
Article
The Interaction of Target and Masker Speech in Competing Speech Perception
by Sheyenne Fishero, Joan A. Sereno and Allard Jongman
Brain Sci. 2025, 15(8), 834; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci15080834 - 4 Aug 2025
Viewed by 531
Abstract
Background/Objectives: Speech perception typically takes place against a background of other speech or noise. The present study investigates the effectiveness of segregating speech streams within a competing speech signal, examining whether cues such as pitch, which typically denote a difference in talker, [...] Read more.
Background/Objectives: Speech perception typically takes place against a background of other speech or noise. The present study investigates the effectiveness of segregating speech streams within a competing speech signal, examining whether cues such as pitch, which typically denote a difference in talker, behave in the same way as cues such as speaking rate, which typically do not denote the presence of a new talker. Methods: Native English speakers listened to English target speech within English two-talker babble of a similar or different pitch and/or a similar or different speaking rate to identify whether mismatched properties between target speech and masker babble improve speech segregation. Additionally, Dutch and French masker babble was tested to identify whether an unknown language masker improves speech segregation capacity and whether the rhythm patterns of the unknown language modulate the improvement. Results: Results indicated that a difference in pitch or speaking rate between target and masker improved speech segregation, but when both pitch and speaking rate differed, only a difference in pitch improved speech segregation. Results also indicated improved speech segregation for an unknown language masker, with little to no role of rhythm pattern of the unknown language. Conclusions: This study increases the understanding of speech perception in a noisy ecologically valid context and suggests that there is a link between a cue’s potential to denote a new speaker and its ability to aid in speech segregation during competing speech perception. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Language Perception and Processing)
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23 pages, 1105 KB  
Article
Examining Speech Perception–Production Relationships Through Tone Perception and Production Learning Among Indonesian Learners of Mandarin
by Keith K. W. Leung, Yu-An Lu and Yue Wang
Brain Sci. 2025, 15(7), 671; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci15070671 - 22 Jun 2025
Viewed by 902
Abstract
Background: A transfer of learning effects across speech perception and production is evident in second-language (L2)-learning research, suggesting that perception and production are closely linked in L2 speech learning. However, underlying factors, such as the phonetic cue weightings given to acoustic features, of [...] Read more.
Background: A transfer of learning effects across speech perception and production is evident in second-language (L2)-learning research, suggesting that perception and production are closely linked in L2 speech learning. However, underlying factors, such as the phonetic cue weightings given to acoustic features, of the relationship between perception and production improvements are less explored. To address this research gap, the current study explored the effects of Mandarin tone learning on the production and perception of critical (pitch direction) and non-critical (pitch height) perceptual cues. Methods: This study tracked the Mandarin learning effects of Indonesian adult learners over a four-to-six-week learning period. Results: We found that perception and production gains in Mandarin L2 learning concurrently occurred with the critical pitch direction cue, F0 slope. The non-critical pitch height cue, F0 mean, only displayed a production gain. Conclusions: The results indicate the role of critical perceptual cues in relating tone perception and production in general, and in the transfer of learning effects across the two domains for L2 learning. These results demonstrate the transfer of the ability to perceive phonological contrasts using critical phonetic information to the production domain based on the same cue weighting, suggesting interconnected encoding and decoding processes in L2 speech learning. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Language Perception and Processing)
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25 pages, 1403 KB  
Protocol
Discrimination and Integration of Phonological Features in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Exploratory Multi-Feature Oddball Protocol
by Mingyue Zuo, Yang Zhang, Rui Wang, Dan Huang, Luodi Yu and Suiping Wang
Brain Sci. 2025, 15(9), 905; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci15090905 - 23 Aug 2025
Viewed by 740
Abstract
Background/Objectives: Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often display heightened sensitivity to simple auditory stimuli, but have difficulty discriminating and integrating multiple phonological features (segmental: consonants and vowels; suprasegmental: lexical tones) at the syllable level, which negatively impacts their communication. This study aims [...] Read more.
Background/Objectives: Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often display heightened sensitivity to simple auditory stimuli, but have difficulty discriminating and integrating multiple phonological features (segmental: consonants and vowels; suprasegmental: lexical tones) at the syllable level, which negatively impacts their communication. This study aims to investigate the neural basis of segmental, suprasegmental and combinatorial speech processing challenges in Mandarin-speaking children with ASD compared with typically developing (TD) peers. Methods: Thirty children with ASD and thirty TD peers will complete a multi-feature oddball paradigm to elicit auditory ERP during passive listening. Stimuli include syllables with single (e.g., vowel only), dual (e.g., vowel + tone), and triple (consonant + vowel + tone) phonological deviations. Neural responses will be analyzed using temporal principal component analysis (t-PCA) to isolate overlapping ERP components (early/late MMN), and representational similarity analysis (RSA) to assess group differences in neural representational structure across feature conditions. Expected Outcomes: We adopt a dual-framework approach to hypothesis generation. First, from a theory-driven perspective, we integrate three complementary models, Enhanced Perceptual Functioning (EPF), Weak Central Coherence (WCC), and the Neural Complexity Hypothesis (NCH), to account for auditory processing in ASD. Specifically, we hypothesize that ASD children will show enhanced or intact neural discriminatory responses to isolated segmental deviations (e.g., vowel), but attenuated or delayed responses to suprasegmental (e.g., tone) and multi-feature deviants, with the most severe disruptions occurring in complex, multi-feature conditions. Second, from an empirically grounded, data-driven perspective, we derive our central hypothesis directly from the mismatch negativity (MMN) literature, which suggests reduced MMN amplitudes (with the exception of vowel deviants) and prolonged latencies accompanied by a diminished left-hemisphere advantage across all speech feature types in ASD, with the most pronounced effects in complex, multi-feature conditions. Significance: By testing alternative hypotheses and predictions, this exploratory study will clarify the extent to which speech processing differences in ASD reflect cognitive biases (local vs. global, per EPF/WCC/NCH) versus speech-specific neurophysiological disruptions. Findings will advance our understanding of the sensory and integrative mechanisms underlying communication difficulties in ASD, particularly in tonal language contexts, and may inform the development of linguistically tailored interventions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Language Perception and Processing)
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