Title: The influence of temporal and spectral stimulus properties on the processing of German vowels and complex tones in reading and spelling disorders: behavioral and fMRI experiments

Project management: PD Dr. Claudia Steinbrink, Prof. Dr. Axel Riecker (University of Ulm), Prof. Dr. Thomas Lachmann

Funded by: German Research Foundation (DFG; STE 1699/2-1)

Funding volume: € 251,000

Duration: June 2011 to May 2014

Content:

Are phonological deficits the primary cause of reading and spelling disorder (LRS), or do they represent a secondary symptom resulting from difficulties in processing basal acoustic parameters of the speech signal? In order to answer this question, the planned project will use both behavioral experiments, which allow for differentiated experimental variation, and imaging (fMRI) methods, which provide access to the neural basis of Dyslexia. However, when it comes to differentiating auditory vs. linguistic deficits, there is the fundamental problem of the comparability of stimulus material and task in the two conditions. In the present project, we attempt to address this problem by (a) investigating auditory processing for German vowels, complex non-linguistic analogs of these vowels and complex tones, (b) using the same task in linguistic and non-linguistic conditions, and (c) systematically varying spectral and temporal parameters of the German vowel system. This allows us to (a) examine the effect of physical complexity and linguistic content of the stimuli, (b) control for task-specific influences, and (c) examine spectral and temporal aspects of auditory processing in linguistic and non-linguistic material