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However, much regarding the more specific association between cortical tracking and acoustic as well as linguistic processing remains to be uncovered. Here, we recorded EEG responses to both meaningful sentences and random word lists in different levels of signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) that lead to different levels of speech comprehension as well as listening effort. We then related the neural signals to the acoustic stimuli by computing the phase-locking value (PLV) between the EEG recordings and the speech envelope. We found that the PLV in the delta band increases with increasing SNR for sentences but not for the random word lists, showing that the PLV in this frequency band reflects linguistic information. When attempting to disentangle the effects of SNR, speech comprehension, and listening effort, we observed a trend that the PLV in the delta band might reflect listening effort rather than the other two variables, although the effect was not statistically significant. In summary, our study shows that the PLV in the delta band reflects linguistic information and might be related to listening effort.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1162\/jocn_a_02016","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,6,1]],"date-time":"2023-06-01T15:25:50Z","timestamp":1685633150000},"page":"1301-1311","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1162\/mitpressjournals.corrections.policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":7,"title":["Phase-locking of Neural Activity to the Envelope of Speech in the Delta Frequency Band Reflects Differences between Word Lists and Sentences"],"prefix":"10.1162","volume":"35","author":[{"given":"Yousef","family":"Mohammadi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Aalborg University, Denmark"}]},{"given":"Carina","family":"Graversen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Aalborg University, Denmark"}]},{"given":"Jan","family":"\u00f8stergaard","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Aalborg University, Denmark"}]},{"given":"Ole Kaeseler","family":"Andersen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Aalborg University, Denmark"}]},{"given":"Tobias","family":"Reichenbach","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Friedrich-Alexander-Universit\u00e4t Erlangen-N\u00fcrnberg, Germany"}]}],"member":"281","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,8,1]]},"reference":[{"key":"2023062818434327100_bib44","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"13367","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.201400998","article-title":"Speech comprehension is correlated with temporal response patterns recorded from auditory cortex","volume":"98","author":"Ahissar","year":"2001","journal-title":"Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A."},{"key":"2023062818434327100_bib1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"438","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jml.2009.05.004","article-title":"Working memory and binding in sentence recall","volume":"61","author":"Baddeley","year":"2009","journal-title":"Journal of Memory and Language"},{"key":"2023062818434327100_bib2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"32","DOI":"10.1044\/jshr.2701.32","article-title":"Standardization of a test of speech perception in noise","volume":"27","author":"Bilger","year":"1984","journal-title":"Journal of Speech and Hearing Research"},{"key":"2023062818434327100_bib3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1654","DOI":"10.1162\/jocn_a_00566","article-title":"Brain signature of working memory for sentence structure: Enriched encoding and facilitated maintenance","volume":"26","author":"Bonhage","year":"2014","journal-title":"Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience"},{"key":"2023062818434327100_bib4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"647","DOI":"10.1016\/j.neuroimage.2017.03.018","article-title":"Oscillatory EEG dynamics underlying automatic chunking during sentence processing","volume":"152","author":"Bonhage","year":"2017","journal-title":"Neuroimage"},{"key":"2023062818434327100_bib100","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1101","DOI":"10.1121\/1.1345696","article-title":"Informational and energetic masking effects in the perception of two simultaneous talkers","volume":"109","author":"Brungart","year":"2001","journal-title":"Journal of the Acoustical Society of America"},{"key":"2023062818434327100_bib5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"386","DOI":"10.1162\/nol_a_00070","article-title":"Effects of structure and meaning on cortical tracking of linguistic units in naturalistic speech","volume":"3","author":"Coopmans","year":"2022","journal-title":"Neurobiology of Language"},{"key":"2023062818434327100_bib6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"100043","DOI":"10.1016\/j.crneur.2022.100043","article-title":"Distracting linguistic information impairs neural tracking of attended speech","volume":"3","author":"Dai","year":"2022","journal-title":"Current Research in Neurobiology"},{"key":"2023062818434327100_bib7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Decruy, L., Lesenfants, D., Vanthornhout, J., & Francart, T. 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