AEF mean values and standard errors of the Chinese and German listeners.

Values were obtained from RMS, averaged across all gradiometers (RMS), and from a fit with one equivalent dipole in the left and right hemisphere. ISF represents the sustained field integrated from 300 ms to 1000 ms after tone onset. Rows 1a-d: average values of all phonetic stimuli used in experiment 1 for Chinese and German listeners. 2a-e: averages across all stimuli for the second experiment which used the musical tone b-flat of a French horn, and the spoken syllable . 3a-b: averages across all four notes of the vowels and <ö>. Only is part of the Chinese phonetic system. 3c: difference between the specific responses evoked by and <ö>. Signals of the left and right dipole waveforms were averaged since there was no indication of lateralization. 4a-c: Average values of the responses evoked by the meaningful tones and the meaningless tones as well as the difference between these two classes. 5a-f: amplitudes of the transient N100m responses averaged across all stimuli and hemispheres (5a) as well as for both hemispheres separately (5b and c) and the difference between hemispheres. 5e-f represent average values across all meaningful and meaningless of Chinese and German listeners (all vowels and the syllable ; “Meaningful” denotes the average across all stimuli being meaningful for Chines listeners (all tones of and —)).