Preattentive processing of lexical tone perception by the human brain as indexed by the mismatch negativity paradigm.

Mismatch negativity (MMN) was used to investigate the processing of the discrimination between native and non-native CV syllables in tonal languages. MMN elicited by the native word was greater than that elicited by the non-native word. Hearing a native-language deviant significantly altered the elicited MMN in both amplitude and scalp voltage field distribution, reflecting the presence of a long-term memory trace for spoken words in tonal languages.