THE EFFECTS OF ATTENTION ON THE

MISMATCH RESPONSE OF INFANTS

Karen Garrido-Nag
Hearing, Speech, and Language Sciences
Gallaudet University
Karen.garrido-nag@gallaudet.edu

Frontiers in Hearing
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Valerie Shafer, Ph.D.
Developmental Neurolinguistics Lab
The Graduate Center, CUNY

Hia Datta
Yan Yu
Nancy Vidal- Finnerty

2
MEASURING SPEECH & LANGUAGE
PROCESSING Motivation Motor skills

Attention

Language
Memory

Input Output

ERPs:
Paradigm: MMN?, MMR?
Age
Language Background
A8en9on
OVERVIEW
Background
Goals
Hypotheses
Experiment I: Tone
Experimental Design & Methods
Results
Conclusion
Experiment II: Speech
Experimental Design & Methods
Results
Conclusion
Conclusion and Discussion
*Maturational Changes in ERP components that measure
speech perception
Future Studies: Clinic

4
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT AND
SPEECH PERCEPTION

Normal speech and language development depends on

discrimination of acoustic features of speech

The mapping of acoustic values to phonetic feature values is

complex and language specific

Speech perception requires decoding the acoustic signal on the

basis of these mappings to recover meaning (Liberman &
Mattingly, 1985)

5
SPEECH PERCEPTION AND
ATTENTION
Models of infant speech perception suggest that
attention plays an important role in speech
perception and word recognition development
(e.g., Jusczyk, 1997; Werker & Curtin, 2005; 2011)
WRAPSA (Jusczyk, 1997) automatically focus attention on
relevant features of speech sounds

PRIMIR (Werker & Curtin, 2005) uses filters to direct attention to one
or more plane where speech is organized

SPR (Strange, 2008)more cognitive resources (attention) are

required for perceiving harder contrasts (native vs non-native
contrasts); automaticity

ATTENTION DEFICIT (AUTISM):

HOW DO THEY PROCESS AUDITORY STIMULI????

6
SPEECH PERCEPTION AND
ATTENTION
Direct evidence of how attention affects speech discrimination
during infancy has minimally looked at.
Furthermore, the attentional mechanisms that an infant might
employ in these processes are not defined
The speech signal saliency probably influences the amount of
attention allocated to processing
Developmental changes in attentional mechanisms or resources
could influence what information an infant focuses on

HOW DO WE CONTROL ATTENTION?

7
 HOW DO WE CONTROL
ATTENTION?
Adults: direct them behaviorally
Infants: ???

Associative Learning (Kaplan, 1991):

Forward pairing of an auditory stimulus with a visual stimulus (face)
(cross-modal processing) to encourage the infant to attend to an auditory
stimulus change; reinforcement

1000 Hz 1000 Hz - 1000 Hz 1200 Hz

Bep - Bep - Bep - Bip
SPEECH PERCEPTION AND ERPs
Mismatch Responses (MMR):

reflects brain discrimination of auditory stimuli

In Adults, MMN (Mismatch Negativity) is a negative deflection in the

wave indexes a comparison process between the deviant and the
standard; MMN is believed to reflect automatic, pre-attentive
discrimination

In Infants, a positive or a negative deflection (Mismatch Response,

MMR) is observed as the discriminative response
Negative MMRs: longer in duration (onset to offset), with peak either the
same time as adults (100-250 ms) or as late as 400-500 ms); usually
greater amplitude than adult MMN
Positive MMRs: 300-400 ms after change onset at superior sites; usually
greater amplitude than adult MMN
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NEGATIVE
MMR AND THE POSITIVE MMR
Explanation 1: Functional
pMMR indexes same processes as adult P3a
(Kushnerenko, et al., 2002)
P3a is an orienting response and it usually follows MMN
in adult studies.
May mask the nMMR

Explanation 2: Maturational
pMMR is a precognitive recovery from refractoriness
(Vaughan & Kurtzberg,1992; Friederici, Friedrich, & Weber,
2002)
nMMR is an immature MMN (Alho & Cheour, 1990; Pang,
Edmonds, Desjardins, Khan, Trainor, & Taylor, 1998)
Difference in polarity is a due to maturational changes in the
brain (Trainor, 2003)
GOALS
How does attention affect speech processing?

1. Establish a method for examining attentional modulation of infant

ERP correlates to sound change
2. Determine the functional nature of the positive versus negative
MMR in infants; in particular, to what extent these measures are
influenced by attention
3. Examine whether attention affects discrimination of speech as
indexed by infant MMRs, specifically, whether the positivity
indexes pre-attentive response to a stimulus change or is
attention independent of a discriminative response
HYPOTHESES
Associative learning between auditory and visual
stimuli will lead to the modulation of MMR
responses in infants
a. If the pMMR is similar to the adult P3a component, for all
participants, we expect to see a pMMR to the deviant stimulus for
both conditions and stimuli

b. The nMMR will show an increased amplitude, if attention to the

stimuli strengthens a weak representation of the relevant
information

c. If there is an increase in negativity, related to b. and if the positive

MMR is the P3a, the P3a should follow the nMMR

12
PARTICIPANTS: EXPERIMENT 1-
TONES

10 typically developing healthy infants aged 4-8

months with no history of hearing impairment

Passed a battery of test of language and cognitive

development:
PLS-4
Rossetti
Bayley
STIMULI: EXPERIMENT 1

Visual Stimuli:

Black and white patterns:

Still shot of dynamic female faces:

Auditory Stimuli (Modified Oddball Paradigm):

Standard: 1000 Hz 1000 Hz 1000 Hz 1000 Hz
Deviant: 1000 Hz 1000 Hz - 1000 Hz 1200 Hz

Morr, et al. (2002)

Conditions: Experiment 1-Tones
2 sessions-1 week separation
1. Non-Contingent:
picture of face appears
100% of the time.
Standard
1000-Hz 1000-Hz 1000-Hz 1000- Hz
Deviant
1000-Hz 1000-Hz 1000-Hz 1200-Hz
Each subject participated in both attention conditions
2. Contingent: picture of
face appears after every
deviant sound only.
Standard
1000-Hz 1000-Hz 1000-Hz 1000- Hz
Deviant
1000-Hz 1000-Hz 1000-Hz 1200- Hz
 Visual Inspection: a
1000-Hz 1000-Hz 1000-Hz 1000/1200- Hz broad negativity from
6
GM_Non-Contingent FZ4 S
250-400 ms with peak
4
FZ4 S4 amplitude of -2.2V.
FZ4 D
FZ4 MMR
2 FZ4 MMR 4 Presence of MMR: Two-
way Stimulus x Time
ANOVAs revealed
V

0
significant interactions at
-2
Fz (f(10, 90)=3.73, p=.
65.0602ms;0.759229V 000)
-4
522.892ms; 3.00738V
277.912ms;-1.93603V
-6
-200 0 200 400 600 800
msec 6 Mismatch Response Fz Contingent
6 FZ4 S Fz Non-Contingent
GM_Contingent
LM Contingent
FZ4 S4 4
LMNon-Contingent
4 FZ4 D
FZ4 MMR 2
2 FZ4 MMR4
0
V

0
V

-2
-2
-4
478.715ms;-1.21719V
-4 109.237ms; -1.28523V
-6
350.201ms; -3.62588V
-6
-8
-200 0 200 400 600 800
0 200 400 600 800
msec msec
 Visual Inspection: an even
1000-Hz 1000-Hz 1000-Hz 1200- Hz broader negativity from
6 250-400 ms with peak
GM_Contingent FZ4 S
FZ4 S4
amplitude of -3.6 V.
4 FZ4 D
FZ4 MMR Presence of MMR: Two-
2 FZ4 MMR4 way Stimulus x Time
ANOVAs at each site
V

0
revealed significant
-2 interactions at all three
478.715ms;-1.21719V frontal sites F3 (f(10, 90) =
-4 109.237ms; -1.28523V
2.58, p = .008), Fz (f(10, 90)
350.201ms; -3.62588V = 2.76, p = .005), and F4
-6
(f(10, 90) = 2.70, p=.006)
-200 0 200 400 600 800
msec
6 6 Mismatch Response Fz Contingent
Task Differences: No
4
GM_Non-Contingent FZ4 S
FZ4 S4 4
Fz Non-Contingent
LM Contingent statistically significant
FZ4 D LMNon-Contingent
FZ4 MMR
2
difference between the
2 FZ4 MMR 4
0 contingent and non-
V

0
V

-2 contingent tasks
-2
-4
65.0602ms;0.759229V
-4
522.892ms; 3.00738V-6
Individual

17
277.912ms;-1.93603V
-6
-8
-200 0 200
msec
400 600 800 0 200
msec
400 600 800
Variability: ???
Number of infants showing negative or positive MMRs for each condition

8 FZ S IA07_Contingent FZ S
IA05_ Non-Contingent 6
FZ D FZ D
6
FZ MMR FZ4 MMR
4
4
2
2
0
V

V
0
-2
-2
-4
-4
-6 446.586ms;2.05698V
-6 354.217ms;5.12932V
-8 -8

-200 0 200 400 600 800 -200 0 200 400 600 800
msec msec
ERP waveforms for two infants are displayed. The positive peak
following the negative MMR is shown by arrows.

18
 Topo Map: Experiment 1 (Tones)
Non-Contingent Contingent

The MMR difference were greatest at the left frontal sites near F3
(site 13) and midline frontal Fz (site 4)
Conclusions: Experiment 1
Attention enhances the negativity, and/or eliminates
the positivity

Focusing attention on the contrast (Contingent)

increased the nMMR more than focusing attention to
the auditory modality (Non-contingent)

Some infants continued to show positive MMR (2/10

for the contingent, 4/10 non-contingent)

In some cases, a positivity followed the negative

MMR

20
 HYPOTHESES
a. If the pMMR is similar to the adult P3a

component, for all participants, we
expect to see a pMMR to the deviant
stimulus for both conditions and
stimuli.

b. The nMMR will show an increased

amplitude, if attention to the stimuli
strengthens a weak representation of

the relevant information.

c. If there is an increase in negativity,

related to b. and if the positive MMR is
the P3a, the P3a should follow the
nMMR

21
EXPERIMENT 2: BP -BIP

Purpose

Examine whether a similar pattern is found

for the vowel contrast I/ in bip vs. bep
stimuli

Examine whether altering the paradigm

slightly will lead to a larger difference
between conditions

22
Stimuli: Experiment 2

Visual Stimuli:
Black and white patterns:

Still shot of dynamic female faces:

Auditory Stimuli (Modified Oddball Paradigm):

Standard: Bep - Bep - Bep - Bep

Deviant: Bep - Bep - Bep - Bip
 Participants: Experiment 2

10 typically developing healthy infants aged 4-8

months with no history of hearing impairment

Passed a battery of test of language and cognitive

development:
PLS-4
Rossetti
Bayley
Conditions: Experiment 2
2 sessions-1 week separation
1. Non-Contingent:
picture of face appears
randomly.
Standard
Bep - Bep - Bep - Bep (20%)
Deviant
Bep - Bep - Bep - Bip (20%)
Each subject participated in both attention conditions
2. Contingent: picture of
face appears after every
deviant sound only.
Standard
Bep - Bep - Bep - Bep
Deviant
Bep - Bep - Bep - Bip
Hypotheses: Experiment 2
Associative learning between auditory and visual stimuli
will lead to the modulation of MMR responses in infants.

a. If the pMMR is similar to the adult P3a component, for all

participants, we expect to see a pMMR to the deviant
stimulus for the non-contingent condition.

b. The nMMR will show an increased amplitude, if attention to

the stimuli strengthens a weak representation of the
relevant information.

c. If there is an increase in negativity, related to b. and if the

positive MMR is the P3a, the P3a should follow the nMMR
1000-Hz 1000-Hz 1000-Hz 1000/1200- Hz Visual Inspection: a positivity
from 250-300 ms with peak
amplitude of .62V.

Presence of MMR: Two way

Stimulus x Time ANOVAs at each
frontal site revealed significant
interaction at the right-frontal site
F4 (f(10, 90)=3.7, p=.000)
 Visual Inspection: a broad
1000-Hz 1000-Hz 1000-Hz 1200- Hz negativity from 150-350 ms with
peak amplitude of -5.14V.

Presence of MMR:Two way

Stimulus x Time ANOVAs at each
frontal site revealed significant
interactions at the left-frontal F3
(f(10,90)=3.36, p=.00), and right-
frontal F4 (f(10, 90)=2.24, p=.02)
sites for the contingent condition

Task Differences: A three-way

ANOVA (Site x Time X Task) at
the frontals sites revealed a
significant difference between the
MMR for the contingent and non-
contingent conditions (f(20, 180) =
2.67, p = 0.00). A two-way ANOVA
(Task x Time) revealed a
significant difference at F3 (f(10,
90) = 3.02, p=0.010)
Individual data count for nMMR at sites F3, Fz, and F4
NEGATIVITY F3 Fz F4
Contingent 7 7 5
Non- 4 4 5
Contingent

Peak Amplitudes for individual participants at Fz for the contingent

and non-contingent tasks.
TOPO MAP: BIP-BEP
Non-Contingent Contingent

Topography maps (superior view) of the subtraction waveforms at peak

amplitudes (1.6 V, 245 ms) for the non-contingent condition (left) and
3.6 V, 270 ms for the contingent condition (right).
CONCLUSION: EXPERIMENT 2
When attention is directed to the change in the
auditory stimuli, infants show a nMMR, similar
to an adult MMN.
When attention is randomly directed to either a
change or no-change train, infants show a
predominantly pMMR
The difference in polarity of the MMR in the two
conditions may indicate that focused attention
does affect the MMR seen in infants

31
 HYPOTHESES
a. If the pMMR is similar to the adult P3a

component, for all participants, we
expect to see a pMMR to the deviant
stimulus for both conditions and stimuli.

b. The nMMR will show an increased

amplitude, if attention to the stimuli
strengthens a weak representation of the
relevant information.

c. If there is an increase in negativity,

related to b, and if the pMMR is the P3a,
the P3a should follow the nMMR

32
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Attention modulates the MMR responses to speech

When attention is directed to the auditory stimulus, infants

show a nMMR, similar to an adult MMN.

The pMMR observed in a passive task is no longer evident

in a stimulus-driven attention task.

Random or unfocused attention to the auditory stimulus has

resulted in either a pMMR or a nMMR followed by a
positivity
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
nMMR: a reflection of a developing MMN found in older
children and adults
The presence of the nMMR in the contingent condition
may indicate that attention is required to discriminate
harder auditory or speech contrasts

Appears to correspond to developmental studies of speech

discrimination that have found the nMMR to increase in
amplitude and shift earlier in time

The formation of good phonological representations may

take some time

34
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
pMMR: may either be a recovery from refractoriness or an orienting
response.
The presence of a predominant pMMR when attention is inconsistently
or randomly focused on the auditory stimuli may indicate that the
infants are actually not discriminating the differences in speech
contrasts

The pMMR is either eliminated and the nMMR increases in amplitude

when the task requires directed attention
It could be that the positive and negative MMR overlap and with
directed attention we see the positivity after the negativity

The reduction of the pMMR in early childhood (up to 4-5years of age)

may indicate increased attentional resources for processing the
auditory information. It could also indicate an increased automaticity in
processing this information.

35
MATURATIONAL
CHANGES: P1
LATENCY &
MMR LATENCY

Shafer, Yu & Datta.

(2010). Journal of
Phonetics.

36
 Maturational changes: T-complex latency

T7/left T8/right
3 months

6 months

12 months

18 months

3 yrs

4 yrs

6yrs

37
125 -198 ms 128 -241 ms
FUTURE DIRECTIONS: CLINIC
1. With the maturational factors involved in speech
perception development, it would be an advantage to
test participants both cross-sectional and
longitudinally to document the effects of attention in
speech perception (speech and language measures)

2. Include intrinsic and extrinsic factors in testing

developmental speech perception:
1. Intrinsic gender differences
2. Extrinsic
1. Language experience (i.e. bilingualism, sensory
deprivation, blackout period)
2. Atypical or delayed language acquisition

3. Look at other components that have shown to have

differences in latency and/or amplitude in children with
language impairment
Thank You!

39
MMN and Attention
Some studies suggest that MMN is not attention-dependent
(Naatanen, 1990)
Others indicate that MMN magnitude can be modulated by
attention (Muller, 2002; Dyson, 2005; Muller-Gass, Stelmach, &
Campbell,
2006; Gomes, 2000; Hisagi, Shafer, Strange &
Sussman 2006)
It follows:
a) Modulation of attention in the visual modality does not interfere
with sound processing
b) Attention to the auditory channel has an effect on MMN size, if
the deviants are difficult to discriminate

40
EVENT RELATED
POTENTIALS (ERPS)
Mismatch Response (MMR)=deviant - standard
With or without overt attention
indexes automatic pre-attentive discrimination of auditory
information
often seen positive MMR(pMMR) in young children and negative
MMR (nMMR, or MMN) in older children and adults (Shafer, Yu &
Datta, 2010)
CONTROVERSIES ON MMR IN
YOUNG CHILDREN

Majority of studies found pMMR in young children (e.g.,

Dehaene-Lambertz, & Dehaene, 1994; Friedrici, et al, 2007)
Co-occurance of both pMMR and nMMR at superior sites
(Morr, Shafer, et al., 2002; He et al., 2007)

A few laboratories reported nMMR in infants (e.g.,

Cheour, et al., 1998)

Functional interpretation of pMMR versus nMMR or

MMN
43
Maturational changes: topography of T-complex
T7/left T8/right
3 months

6 months

12 months

18 months

3 yrs

4 yrs

6yrs 500 ms

44
125 -198 ms 128 -241 ms
TO SUM
P100, MMR and T-complex latency decreases as age
increases.

45
ERP COMPONENTS
One single ERP component may not be
sufficient to index speech processing.

Abnormalities in children with LI:

P100:
Delay in P100 in children with language impairment (LI) (Shafer
et al, 2007).
Mismatch response (MMR):
Reduced or no MMN in children with LI (Shafer, et al., 2004).
T-complex:
Deviant temporal responses in children with LI (Martin,
Shafer,& Schwartz, in press).

46
CONCLUSIONS
pMMR is a more primitive processing
nMMR/MMN indexes the robustness of speech
sound representation
Increased negativity in bilingual girls is probably due to more
attention allocated to processing the speech contrast.
CONCLUSIONS
The latency of P1, MMR, and T-complex
decreases as age advances.
For both monolingual and bilingual children,
the positive MMR dominants at younger
age, and negative MMR/MMN emerges
around age 4 years old.
Amplitude of MMR correlates with age only
in monolinguals, possibly due to attention
modulation effects in bilingual females.

48
Measuring speech & language processing in
infants

Input Output

Behavioral: Brain measures are aected by a number of
factors:
High-amplitude sucking
Age
Heart-rate measures Cor9cal matura9on
Gender
Visual habituation/dishabituation
Language exposure
paradigms
Language performance
A8en9on
CONCLUSIONS (CONTD)
Language group differences observed as early as six months
of age.
T-complex response appears sensitive to English language
measures (e.g., PPVT).

50
 ERPS: AUDITORY AND
LANGUAGE PROCESSING

Phonology
Syntactic
Auditory processes Reanalysis
Syntax Semantics

_________________________________________________________________
Time (ms)
0 150 300 450 600
ABR N50 P1 N1 ELAN P2 N2 P300 LRP N400 LAN P600
PN MMR LR

obligatory cognitive
responses responses
Neural Basis t0 t1 t2 t3 t4

of ERPs
t1

0 0

t0 t1 t2 t3 t4
 EEG VS. ERP

Electroencephalogram (EEG)
spontaneous brainwaves

6 Average ERP to CVC Words CZ

4 P2 229 ms

Event Related Potentials (ERPs) V 0

-2

brainwaves time-locked to stimuli of interest -4

N1 119 ms

0 200 400 600 800

milliseconds
ELECTROENCEPHALO
GRAM (EEG)
Cz

Voltage

+ ENVIRONMENT Time
EVENT RELATED POTENTIALS (ERPS)
Cz

S S S S S

6 Average ERP to CVC Words CZ

4 P2 229 ms

V 0
Voltage
-2
N1 119 ms
-4
0 200 400 600 800
milliseconds

Time
 EVENT RELATED POTENTIALS

Voltage fluctuations (Potentials) recorded from the human scalp

Result of neuronal activity

Time-locked (Related) to a sensory, motor, or cognitive stimulus

(Event)
 Results:Contingent Condition

Negative MMRs were present for

1000-Hz 1000-Hz 1000-Hz 1200- Hz
both attend conditions. However,
significant only for the Contingent
Condition (p=.01)
8/10 infants showed a
negative MMR
4/8 infants showed a
positivity following the
negative MMR
 Results: Non-Contingent Condition Anterior left

1000-Hz 1000-Hz 1000-Hz 1200- Hz

4/10 infants showed

a negative MMR
3/4 infants showed
a positivity following
the negative MMR
 EEG data offline analysis
Offline EEG data processing follows the steps as:
segmentation: one segment of 1000ms (-200-800)
Entire baseline correction:
Artifact detection: segments rejected if differential average amplitude
exceeds 140 V.
Bad channel replacement: if 15% of segments in a channel was detected
as bad, replace it.
Average:
Baseline correction: 100ms long baseline
Montage operation: re-reference to the average of all 63 channels.
Difference waves: MMR=D-S
Satndadrd 1,,2,,3,4 and deviant

13- 4- 62
17 Cz (63)- 54
LM -26
RM -51
161-490; 30 ms
Background- neurophysiology

Neurophysiological measures show that

language experience affects speech
perception at the pre-attentive level
Mismatch Negativity (MMN) automatic,
preattentive index of discrimination.
MMN is smaller and later for more difficult discriminations

Smaller and later for non-native than native

listeners (e.g., Winkler, et al. 1999; Shafer et al.,
2004).
 Background- neurophysiology
Garrido-Nag, Hisagi & Shafer (Talk 1)
Early L2 learners (< age 5) show clear brain
discriminative responses to L2 speech contrasts,
similar to monolinguals, and behavioral
identification with attention is excellent.
But more variable
Late L2 (> age 18) show smaller brain
discriminative responses to L2 contrasts and
poor behavioral identification. However, they can
discriminate the L2 speech sounds.
Difference is seen in neural circuits indexed by
the Mismatch Negativity component.
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT AND
SPEECH PERCEPTION
Speech Processing Studies:
Infants have well developed speech perception
skills.
Infants are generally perceptive of all languages
at birth up to 6 months
Infants become perceptive of specific
language(s) by 1-year-of age (between 6
&12 months of age, dependent on contrast)
(Werker & Tees, 1999)

65
SPEECH PERCEPTION AND
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Infants learn to weight cues according to importance in the
ambient language (Kuhl; Curtin & Werker, 2005).
Infants learn from the statistical distribution of phonetic
variation in the speech (Maye, 2002)
Infants learn to automatically attend to relevant acoustic
cues in the ambient language (e.g., Jusczyk, 1997)
Selective Perceptual Routines
(SPRs, Strange & Shafer, 2008)
These abilities develop over the first few years
of life (Nittrouer & Miller, 1997)

Auditory Processing Problems: SLI, Autism, ADD, LD

Where is the breakdown?

66
TONE

67
68
BIP-BEP

69
70
THE PRIMARY
PURPOSES
Investigate the relationship between brain maturation and
language experience
the developmental changes of ERP responses from infancy to early
school age
role of bilingual exposure in speech processing
whether ERP measures correlate with language measures

71
EVENT RELATED
POTENTIALS
(ERPS)
ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAM
(EEG)
Cz

Voltage

+ ENVIRONMENT Time
EVENT RELATED POTENTIALS (ERPS)
Cz

S S S S S

Voltage

Time
TOPOGRAPHY
TOPOGRAPHY

Latency: 226 ms
CONCLUSIONS
Bilingual infants and children show more dynamic changes,
with interjec=on of adult-like paAerns of speech percep=on
than monolingual children modulated by certain factors

Brain measures of speech percep=on in infants and children
are aected by a number of factors:
Age
Cor9cal matura9on
Gender
Language exposure
Language performance
A8en9on

 Attention & MMR
Attention to a random set of sounds: pMMR Attention to sound-change: : nMMR

pMMR reflects a more primitive orientation related processing

nMMR/MMN relates to mature processing driven by attention to speech

Garrido-Nag, In prep
HOW DOES NEUROPHYSIOLOGY OF
SPEECH PERCEPTION
(AS MEASURED BY ERPS),
DEVELOP DIFFERENTLY WITH DIFFERENCES
IN LANGUAGE-EXPOSURE &
LANGUAGE-PERFORMANCE?
CONCLUSIONS

Language exposure and gender may bias infants aAen=on towards changes
in speech sounds in the environment (MMR)

This increased aAen=on towards speech in bilingual children might help
them with more robust speech-encoding (T-complex)