Biology subjects

Gervain, J.

Publications and source records attributed to Gervain, J..

5 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Brain-tuning near criticality in newborns by prenatal experience with language

Language development starts early, possibly even in the womb. Recent results suggest that newborns neural responses to speech in the prenatally heard language are already different from those to unfamiliar languages. However, the neural dynamics of how these differential responses emerge remains little understood. Here, we hypothesize that they are supported by a functional tuning to criticality--a state that maximizes information transmission, dynamic range, and flexibility--, induced in newborns by the prenatally experienced language. To test this hypothesis, we study resting-state brain activity before and after stimulation with naturally spoken sentences in the prenatal language, French, in a rhythmically similar unfamiliar language, Spanish, as well as in a rhythmically different unfamiliar language, English. We show that the native language elicits brain tuning near criticality, balancing network activity and enhancing temporal correlations. Importantly, we find that the network state is not sensitive to the rhythmically different language, and only partially responds to the rhythmically similar language. These results indicate a stimulus-driven tuning to criticality in newborns, a potential foundation for early neuroplasticity, which relies on prenatal experience and may respond to early functional and developmental needs.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2025

Predisposed and learned preferences for multipoint visual statistics in visually naïve newly hatched chicks

Significance statementWe show that visually naive chicks spontaneously prefer specific multipoint correlation patterns, mirroring preferences seen in humans and rats, and reflecting the most informative structures in natural scenes. This provides evidence that efficient coding mechanisms may be innately driven by evolutionary predispositions. Notably, early visual experience through imprinting can alter these preferences, highlighting a role for learning in shaping visual processing. Recent studies have revealed that human and non-human animals (rats) can detect luminance distribution and correlations between pixels in an image (ranging from 2-point to 4-point). This sensitivity is believed to stem from optimization processes in the visual system that operate through efficient coding mechanisms to extract the most informative image statistics from the environment. However, it is yet to be determined whether this optimization is evolutionarily given by inborn mechanisms or shaped by visual experience. Here we report that newly-hatched visually naive domestic chicks spontaneously prefer to approach luminance, 2-point and 4-point correlation patterns (respectively, horizontal lines and rectangular patterns), while showing no preference for 3-point correlation over white noise controls. This parallels the ranking observed in adult humans and rats, thus suggesting that evolutionarily given biological predispositions largely drive efficient coding of natural images. We also found that learning by exposure to visual stimuli, as occurs naturally during visual imprinting, induced a preference for white noise over point correlation patterns in chicks exposed to 3- and 4-point patterns. We hypothesize that this behavior could reflect chicks preference for stimuli of lower statistical complexity.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2025

The Role of Syllabic Rhythm in Speech Perception Across Languages

The insertion of silences at regular intervals restores the intelligibility of English utterances that have been accelerated beyond comprehension, as long as the duration of the resulting speech-silence chunks falls within the theta rhythm of natural speech, i.e. the temporal modulation associated to the syllabic rate. We test whether such a rhythmic strategy works in languages rhythmically different from English, a stress-timed language. Thus, we assess whether comprehension of time-compressed Semantically Unpredictable Sentences (SUS) is restored in the syllable-timed language French and the mora-timed language Japanese, when silences re-establishing theta rhythm are inserted. Restoring the theta rhythm also improved intelligibility in French, but not in Japanese, in which best performance was instead achieved at faster rhythms, which suggests that modulation at the rate of a languages basic rhythmic unit plays a key role in understanding speech. In a second experiment, French speakers listened to SUS with speech-silence chunks adapted to the range of the temporal modulations of the delta, gamma, and high gamma rhythms, which correspond to the rate of prosodic phrases, phonemes, and subsegmental features, respectively. Unlike the theta rhythm, we found no restorative effects, providing further evidence for the special status of the theta rhythm in speech comprehension.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Prenatal experience with language shapes the brain

Human infants acquire language with striking ease compared to adults, but the neural basis of their remarkable brain plasticity for language remains little understood. Applying a scaling analysis of neural oscillations for the first time to address this question, we show that newborns electrophysiological activity exhibits increased long-range temporal correlations after stimulation with speech, particularly in the prenatally heard language, indicating the early emergence of brain specialization for the native language.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Does rhythmic priming improve grammatical processing in Hungarian-speaking children with and without Developmental Language Disorder?

Research has described several features shared between musical rhythm and speech or language, and experimental studies consistently show associations between performance on tasks in the two domains as well as impaired rhythm processing in children with language disorders. Motivated by these results, in the current study our first aim was to explore whether the activation of the shared system underlying rhythm and language processing with a regular musical rhythm can improve subsequent grammatical processing in preschool-aged Hungarianspeaking children with and without Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). Second, we investigated whether rhythmic priming is specific to grammar processing by assessing priming in two additional domains: a linguistic but non-grammatical task (picture naming) and a non-linguistic task (nonverbal Stroop task). Third, to confirm that the rhythmic priming effect originates from the facilitating effect of the regular rhythm and not the negative effect of the control condition, we added a third condition, silence, for all the three tasks. Both groups of children showed better performance on the grammaticality judgment task in the regular compared to both the irregular and the silent conditions but no such effect appeared in the non-grammatical and non-linguistic tasks. These results suggest that 1) rhythmic priming can improve grammatical processing in Hungarian, a language with complex morphosyntax, both in children with and without DLD, 2) the effect is specific to grammar and 3) is a result of the facilitating effect of the regular rhythm.Research Highlights6-year-old Hungarian-speaking children with and without Developmental Language Disorder perform better on a grammatical task subsequent to exposure to a regular rhythm vs. an irregular rhythm/silenceThe effect of regular rhythm is specific: it improves performance on a grammatical task but not on a word retrieval or a non-linguistic taskDifference between performance following regular vs. irregular rhythm originates from the facilitating effect of the regular rhythm (not the negative effect of the irregular rhythm)The results highlight the importance of rhythm in speech processing, and point towards a possible intervention tool in language disordersCompeting Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.View Full Text

physiology↗