To evaluate the selectivity of neurons to specific syllables, their activities were further compared for words that contained the preferred syllable of each neuron (that is, the syllable to which they responded most strongly; green) to (i) words that contained one or more of same individual phonemes but not necessarily their preferred syllable, (ii) words that contained different phonemes and syllables, (iii) words that contained the same phonemes but divided across different syllables and (iv) words that contained the same phonemes in a syllable but in different order (grey). Neuronal activities across all comparisons (to green points) were significant ( n = 113; P = 6.2 x 10 -20, 8.8 x 10 -20, 4.2 x 10 -20 and 1.4 x 10 -20, for the comparisons above, respectively; two-sided Wilcoxon signed-rank test). Data are presented as mean (dot) values +- s.e.m.
