Stimuli.

<p>Squared sound pressure curves (black) of the vowels and syllables recorded from a native speaker, as well as a French horn tone. The red line indicates the pitch contour (<i>f</i>₀) for each sound.</p

Grand-average source waveforms for specific stimuli.

<p><b>(a)</b> Responses pooled across hemispheres to a French horn tone (b-flat 117 Hz) and <b>(b)</b> to the spoken stimulus presented in experiment 2 to the Chinese and German listeners. Note the similarity of the AEF between groups for the horn tone in contrast to the significant larger response evoked by the syllable for Chinese listeners. <b>(c)</b> and <b>(d)</b> depict the grand-average source waveforms elicited by the vowels and <ö> (averaged across all four tone conditions, T1-T4). While the vowel occurs in both languages, <ö> is only part of the German language. <b>(e)</b> Responses to the syllables and of the Chinese group and <b>(f)</b> the German group. has no meaning in Chinese, in contrast to ; in German, both syllables are meaningless. <b>(g)</b> Time-variant difference of the Chinese responses to the stimuli meaningful and meaningless phonemes (red curve), and the difference of the average responses to the all spoken stimuli between Chinese and Germans (blue curve). <b>(h)</b> N100m signals of the Chinese vs the German listeners for the meaningful syllables (black boxes: -, -), and the meaningless signals (gray triangles: all vowels and ). The Pearson correlation coefficient corresponding to the mean values of the meaningless signals (blue triangles) between groups is <i>r</i> = 0.96, (<i>P</i><0.0001); however, no significant correlation was found for the meaningful syllables (black squares).</p

Grand-average auditory evoked fields.

<p><b>(a)</b> RMS magnetic field gradients (based on all gradiometers) of all syllables and vowels and pitch contours (T1-T4) used in experiment 1 (red: <i>n</i> = 20 Chinese listeners; black: <i>n</i> = 20 German listeners). <b>(b)</b> Grand-average RMS evoked by the syllable and the horn tone of experiment 2 (red: <i>n</i> = 11 Chinese listeners and black: <i>n</i> = 14 German listeners).</p

AEF mean values and standard errors of the Chinese and German listeners.

<p>Values were obtained from RMS, averaged across all gradiometers (RMS), and from a fit with one equivalent dipole in the left and right hemisphere. ISF represents the sustained field integrated from 300 ms to 1000 ms after tone onset. <b>Rows 1a-d</b>: average values of all phonetic stimuli used in experiment 1 for Chinese and German listeners. <b>2a-e</b>: averages across all stimuli for the second experiment which used the musical tone b-flat of a French horn, and the spoken syllable . <b>3a-b</b>: averages across all four notes of the vowels and <ö>. Only is part of the Chinese phonetic system. <b>3c</b>: difference between the specific responses evoked by and <ö>. Signals of the left and right dipole waveforms were averaged since there was no indication of lateralization. <b>4a-c</b>: Average values of the responses evoked by the meaningful tones and the meaningless tones as well as the difference between these two classes. <b>5a-f</b>: amplitudes of the transient N100m responses averaged across all stimuli and hemispheres (5a) as well as for both hemispheres separately (5b and c) and the difference between hemispheres. <b>5e-f</b> represent average values across all meaningful and meaningless of Chinese and German listeners (all vowels and the syllable ; “Meaningful” denotes the average across all stimuli being meaningful for Chines listeners (all tones of and —)).</p

Grand-mean waveforms.

<p><b>(a)</b> Grand-mean RMS of all pooled phonetic responses used in experiment 1, for Chinese (red) and German (black) listeners. <b>(b)</b> Grand-average source waveforms of all pooled phonetic responses of the N100m and the SF with one equivalent dipole in each hemisphere. Waveforms shown in the time interval from 0–200 ms were based on a fit of the transient N100m. The waveforms shown in the second part of the plot (200–1000 ms) were derived from a dipole model of the SF which was based on a fit interval from 300–600 ms after tone onset. Note the similarity of data derived from the left and right hemisphere. <b>(c)</b> Integrated sustained field (ISF) plotted against stimulus duration. The error bars depict the standard error of the mean. <b>(d)</b> Projection of the mean Talairach coordinates of the dipole models of both groups for the speech sounds and the horn tone onto the map of Schneider et al. [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0180441#pone.0180441.ref040" target="_blank">40</a>]. The error bars represent the standard errors of the mean along the <i>x</i>- and <i>y</i>-axis. <b>(e)</b> Mean Talairach coordinates of the ISF-generators for speech signals, derived from the standard fit interval (300–600 ms after tone onset) of the Chinese (red) and German (grey) listeners and the corresponding positions based on the late fit interval (500–800 ms, Chinese (dark red) and German listeners (black)).</p