Age-related differences in Voice-Onset-Time in Polish language users: An ERP study

Abstract Using the Mismatch Negativity (MMN) paradigm we investigated for the first time cortical responses to consonant - vowel (CV) syllables differing in Voice-Onset-Time (VOT) for Polish, a member of the Slavic group of languages. The study aimed at testing age-related effects on different ERP responses in young (20–30 years of age) and elderly (60–68 years) native Polish speakers. Participants were presented with a sequence of voiced and voiceless stop CV syllables /to/ and /do/ with different VOT values (−100 ms, −70 ms, −30 ms, −20 ms, +20 ms, +50 ms). We analyzed MMN and P1, N1, N1′, P2, N2 components. Our results showed an age-related decline in voicing perception in all tested ERP components. This decline could be explained in relation to a general slowing in neural processing with advancing age and may be associated with difficulties in temporal- and spectral-information processing in elderly people. Our findings revealed also that specific features of Slavic languages influence ERP morphology in a different way than reported in the literature for aspirating languages.