We found a robust increase in the early (~50 ms) electrophysiological
activity elicited by the same spoken syllables only when they were
incorporated into native-like novel word-forms. This increase, generated
by left perisylvian cortical sources, took place over a short (30 min)
exposure session and did not depend on the amount of attention paid
to the stimuli, suggesting automatic nature of neural memory trace
build-up. Furthermore, the magnitude of this brain response increase
predicted the following behavioural recall of the newly acquired items.