Schedule of Events | Search Abstracts | Invited Symposia | Symposia | Poster Sessions | Data Blitz

Talker accent modulates neural processing of Mandarin-English code-switched speech

Poster Session B - Sunday, March 8, 2026, 8:00 – 10:00 am PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Khushi Nilesh Patil¹ (), Chao Han¹, Philip J. Monahan¹; ¹University of Toronto

Code-switching in speech typically results in behavioural (Fricke et. al, 2016; Olson, 2017) and neurophysiological costs (e.g., N400, LPC; Fernandez et. al, 2019; Yacovone et. al, 2021). That said, anticipatory phonetic cues reduce behavioral switch costs (Shen et. al, 2020). Moreover, foreign accented speech modulates neurophysiological responses to otherwise unexpected speech patterns (Hanulikova et. al, 2011). Here, we ask whether listeners process code-switched sentences differently when speaker accent varies. Mandarin-English bilingual participants (n = 48) listened to English sentences with and without Mandarin code-switches produced by a Canadian English or Mandarin-accented talker, while their neural activity was recorded using a 32-channel whole-head EEG. In half of all audio stimuli, the entire sentence was spoken in English, while in the other half, a sentence-medial noun was spoken in Mandarin, while the rest of the sentence was in English; for example, "He did his homework on the school bus" or "He did his zuòyè (homework) on the school bus". We observed N400s for all code-switches relative to unilingual targets, and reduced N400 effects for English-to-Mandarin code-switches in the Mandarin-accented condition relative to those in the Canadian English condition. We also observed LPC/P600 effects exclusively for code-switches in Canadian English speech. We infer that speaker accent does influence code-switch processing costs, and that processing demands are eased in contexts where the code-switch is perceived as more typical. This research provides insight into neurophysiological mechanisms underlying code-switching, deepening our understanding of phonetic variation and cross-linguistic interactions in the multilingual brain.

Topic Area: LANGUAGE: Other