Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32427066›Full record

ArticleJournal of cognitive neuroscience2020

Syllables in Sync Form a Link: Neural Phase-locking Reflects Word Knowledge during Language Learning.

Laura Batterink

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
9citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

9 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Aberrant Neural Entrainment to Word-Level Speech Patterns in Fragile X Syndrome: Evidence for a Statistical Learning Deficit.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2026
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  4. Neural Correlates of Perceptual Plasticity in the Auditory Midbrain and Thalamus.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025
    Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

Laura BatterinkBrain and Mind Institute, Western University, London, ON, Canada.

Funding

TRAINING PROGRAM IN THE NEUROSCIENCE OF HUMAN COGNITIONT32NS047987 · NINDS · NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY AT CHICAGO · PI Rodrigo M Braga, Christina Maria Zelano · 2006 to 2026
$5.6M
Statistical learning, memory systems, and sleep-based memory consolidationF32HD078223 · NICHD · NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY · PI BATTERINK, LAURA · 2014 to 2015
$106k
NICHD NIH HHS F32 HD078223NINDS NIH HHS T32 NS047987
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Language is composed of small building blocks, which combine to form larger meaningful structures. To understand language, we must process, track, and concatenate these building blocks into larger linguistic units as speech unfolds over time. An influential idea is that phase-locking of neural oscillations across different levels of linguistic structure provides a mechanism for this process. Building on this framework, the goal of the current study was to determine whether neural phase-locking occurs more robustly to novel linguistic items that are successfully learned and encoded into memory, compared to items that are not learned. Participants listened to a continuous speech stream composed of repeating nonsense words while their EEG was recorded and then performed a recognition test on the component words. Neural phase-locking to individual words during the learning period strongly predicted the strength of subsequent word knowledge, suggesting that neural phase-locking indexes the subjective perception of specific linguistic items during real-time language learning. These findings support neural oscillatory models of language, demonstrating that words that are successfully perceived as functional units are tracked by oscillatory activity at the matching word rate. In contrast, words that are not learned are processed merely as a sequence of unrelated syllables and thus not tracked by corresponding word-rate oscillations.

Indexed as

LanguageSpeech PerceptionHumansLanguage DevelopmentLearningLinguisticsSpeech

Identifiers

PMID32427066
PMCPMC7395883

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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.