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. 2025 Jun 24:16:1565222.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1565222. eCollection 2025.

FONO SENSE: a technological resource for recording the auditory N400 component

Ana Luiza de Faria Luiz  1 , Yara Bagali Alcântara  1 , Isabela Tiezi Rombola  1 , Simone Aparecida Capellini  2 , Ana Claudia Figueiredo Frizzo  1
Affiliations

FONO SENSE: a technological resource for recording the auditory N400 component

Ana Luiza de Faria Luiz et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

This study aimed to develop a tool for phonological auditory electrophysiological assessment, focusing on the N400 component of Event-Related Potentials in adults and children with and without dyslexia. The cross-sectional analytical research, approved by the ethics committee (protocol n° 4.565.753), included 25 participants divided into three groups: 10 children with dyslexia (EG), 5 children without dyslexia (CG-s), and 10 adults without learning disorders (CG-a). The study was conducted in two phases. The first phase involved developing a mobile application with Congruent and Incongruent phonological tasks using words and non-words to assess reading, letter-sound relationships, syntactic-semantic integration, and lexical memory. In the second phase, participants performed auditory-linguistic tasks with acoustic stimuli (/ba/and/da/), combined with the app tasks, while the N400 potential was recorded using the Biologic's Evoked Potential System (EP) with binaural stimulation in an oddball paradigm. The results showed a significant difference in latency between EG and CG-a for the incongruent task, with EG displaying delayed latency. Only CG-a exhibited a significant latency reduction in the incongruent task. No significant differences in amplitude were observed between groups or factors. In conclusion, the application effectively elicited the N400 potential in all groups, demonstrating shorter latencies in adults compared to children, both with and without dyslexia.

Keywords: N400; auditory evoked potentials; dyslexia; electrophysiological assessment; event-related potentials; language development; phonological processing.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Example of the forced choice task of words and non-words. Syllable /da/ of the words circled in black. Source: FONO SENSE APP, 2021.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Analysis of the association of the relative frequency distribution (%) and 95% confidence interval (95%CI) of sex within the group. EG, Experimental Group; CG-a, Control Group - adults, GC-s, Control Group – students. Source: prepared by the author.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Comparison of mean and 95% confidence interval (95%CI) for age between groups. Legend: EG: Experimental Group; CG-a: Control Group - adults, GC-s: Control Group - students; *, significant difference between groups by one-way Anova test; †, significant difference in relation to the other groups by Post-hoc and Bonferroni test. Source: prepared by the author.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Grand average of PRE-N400 exam records for the three groups. CG-a, control group adults; CG-S, control group Students; EG, experimental group. Source: prepared by the author.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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