AUTHOR=Strotseva-Feinschmidt Anna , Cunitz Katrin , Friederici Angela D. , Gunter Thomas C. 

TITLE=Auditory Discrimination Between Function Words in Children and Adults: A Mismatch Negativity Study

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=6

YEAR=2015

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01930

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01930

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<p>Previous behavioral studies showed that it is not until around the age of seven that German children reliably use case markers for the interpretation of complex sentences. Some explanations of this late development suggested that children might have difficulties in perceptual differentiation between function words that carry case information. We tested this hypothesis by using the neurophysiological index of pre-attentive discrimination, the mismatch negativity (MMN). Our data showed that children at the age of 3 years are able to automatically discriminate between the two determiner forms <italic>der</italic> and <italic>den</italic> when presented out of sentential context. The determiner form <italic>der</italic> elicited a more mature MMN response in children than the form <italic>den</italic>. In adults, the MMN pattern also differed with <italic>der</italic> showing an earlier peak than <italic>den</italic>. These findings indicate that <italic>der</italic> is easier to process than <italic>den</italic>, which in turn is related to the occurrence frequency of the determiner forms in language.</p>