Neural mechanisms underlying accent processing in naturalistic conversations: Insights from brain oscillations and fNIRS
Objectives:
Accents play a crucial role in social interactions, affecting not only language comprehension but also social inferences and cognitive processing. While much research has focused on how foreign accents are perceived and processed by listeners, the underlying neural mechanisms, especially during naturalistic interactions, are not well understood. This project aims to explore how accents are processed in real-time social exchanges by using EEG measures of neural synchronisation and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to monitor neural activity in the prefrontal and temporal regions. The goal is to identify neural correlates of accent comprehension and adaptation and understand how individual differences in cognitive flexibility and social awareness affect accent processing.
Expected Results:
(i) To identify neural patterns associated with the cognitive effort involved in processing foreign versus native accents; (ii) to demonstrate how neural activation changes over time as listeners adapt to different accents; (iii) to understand how social factors, such as attitudes towards accented speakers, modulate the neural processing of accents.
Supervisor:
Guillaume Thierry
- Host institution: Bangor University
- Location: Bangor, UK
Doctoral Candidate:
Hui Chen
- Host institution: Bangor University
- Location: Bangor, UK
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