How Do Native and Non-native Listeners Differ? Investigation with Dominant Frequency Bands in Auditory Evoked Potential

EEG signal provides valuable insights into cortical responses to specific exogenous stimuli, including auditory and visual stimuli. This study investigates the evoked potential in EEG signals and dominant frequency bands for native and non-native subjects. Songs in different languages are played to subjects using conventional in-ear phones or bone-conducting devices. Time-frequency analysis is performed to characterise induced and evoked responses in the EEG signal, focusing on the phase synchronisation level of the evoked potential as a significant feature. Phase locking value (PLV) and weighted phase lag index (WPLI) are used to assess the phase synchrony between the EEG signal and sound signal, while the frequency-dependent effective gain is analysed to understand its impact. The results demonstrate that native subjects experience higher levels of evoked potential, indicating more complex cognitive neural processes compared to non-native subjects. Dominant frequency windows associated with higher levels of evoked potential are identified using a peak-picking algorithm. Interestingly, the choice of playing device has minimal influence on the evoked potential, suggesting similar outcomes with both in-ear phones and bone-conducting devices. This study provides valuable insights into the neural processing differences between native and non-native subjects and highlights the potential impact of playing devices on the evoked potential.