Speech motor facilitation is not affected by ageing but is modulated by task demands during speech perception

2021 ◽  
pp. 108135
Author(s):  
Helen E. Nuttall ◽  
Gwijde Maegherman ◽  
Joseph T. Devlin ◽  
Patti Adank
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Speech Motor

scholarly journals What happens to the motor theory of perception when the motor system is damaged?

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 225-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alena Stasenko ◽  
Frank E. Garcea ◽  
Bradford Z. Mahon
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Action Recognition ◽  
Motor System ◽  
Motor Impairments ◽  
Motor Theory ◽  
Input And Output ◽  
Motor Information ◽  
Neuropsychological Evidence ◽  
Motor Representations ◽  
Speech Motor

AbstractMotor theories of perception posit that motor information is necessary for successful recognition of actions. Perhaps the most well known of this class of proposals is the motor theory of speech perception, which argues that speech recognition is fundamentally a process of identifying the articulatory gestures (i.e. motor representations) that were used to produce the speech signal. Here we review neuropsychological evidence from patients with damage to the motor system, in the context of motor theories of perception applied to both manual actions and speech. Motor theories of perception predict that patients with motor impairments will have impairments for action recognition. Contrary to that prediction, the available neuropsychological evidence indicates that recognition can be spared despite profound impairments to production. These data falsify strong forms of the motor theory of perception, and frame new questions about the dynamical interactions that govern how information is exchanged between input and output systems.

Speech Production and Perception in a Patient with Severe Impairment of Somesthetic Perception and Motor Control

1967 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter F. MacNeilage ◽  
Thomas P. Rootes ◽  
Richard Allen Chase
Keyword(s):  
Motor Control ◽  
Speech Perception ◽  
Speech Production ◽  
Neurological Examination ◽  
Motor Behavior ◽  
Motor Information ◽  
Perceptual Performance ◽  
Motor Abnormalities ◽  
Normal Speech ◽  
Speech Motor

Studies were made of speech and other motor behavior of a 17-year-old female with severe chronic difficulties in swallowing, chewing, and speaking. Studies included: (a) physical and neurological examination; (b) phonological analysis; (c) electromyography; (d) cinefluorography; (e) non-speech motor tests; (f) tests of phoneme perception, and (g) dichotic auditory perception tests. Neurological examination revealed severe defects in complex somesthetic sensation (e.g. stereognosis). Other sensory functions, including hearing, were normal. Although motor abnormalities of extrapyramidal, cerebellar or peripheral origin were not indicated, the patient was unable to activate the several muscles required for any given speech gesture while at the same time independently controlling their various patterns of activity in normal fashion. It was concluded that this difficulty was not primarily of motor origin but resulted from congenital inability to obtain somesthetic information necessary for learning of the patterns of spatial distribution and temporal modulation of muscle contraction accompanying normal speech. Despite the severe speech production deficits, speech perception approached normality, even in some characteristics which, according to the motor theory of speech perception, are dependent on the listener’s referring to the neural correlates of normal speech motor control. Reference to normal motor information does not therefore appear necessary for these types of perceptual performance.

scholarly journals Acoustically driven cortical delta oscillations underpin perceptual chunking

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.M. Rimmele ◽  
D. Poeppel ◽  
O. Ghitza
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Target Identification ◽  
Behavioral Performance ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Middle Temporal ◽  
Random Digit ◽  
Speech Motor ◽  
Delta Oscillations

AbstractOscillation-based models of speech perception postulate a cortical computational principle by which decoding is performed within a window structure derived by a segmentation process. In the syllable level segmentation is realized by a theta oscillator. We provide evidence for an analogous role of a delta oscillator at the phrasal level. We recorded MEG while participants performed a target identification task. Random-digit strings, with phrasal chunks of two digits, were presented at chunk rates inside or outside of the delta range. Strong periodicities were elicited by acoustic-driven chunk rates inside of delta, in superior and middle temporal areas and speech-motor integration areas. Periodicities were diminished or absent for chunk rates outside of the delta range, closely in line with behavioral performance. No periodicities were observed for top-down driven chunking conditions. Our findings show that phrasal chunking is correlated with acoustic-driven delta oscillations, expressing anatomically specific patterns of neuronal periodicities.

Attention, task demands, and multitalker processing costs in speech perception.

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (12) ◽  
pp. 1673-1680
Author(s):  
David Saltzman ◽  
Sahil Luthra ◽  
Emily B. Myers ◽  
James S. Magnuson
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Attention Task

scholarly journals Categorical Perception of Speech by Children With Specific Language Impairments

2005 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 944-959 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffry A. Coady ◽  
Keith R. Kluender ◽  
Julia L. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Categorical Perception ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
Discrimination Performance ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
Language Impairments ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Specific Language Impairments

Previous research has suggested that children with specific language impairments (SLI) have deficits in basic speech perception abilities, and this may be an underlying source of their linguistic deficits. These findings have come from studies in which perception of synthetic versions of meaningless syllables was typically examined in tasks with high memory demands. In this study, 20 children with SLI (mean age=9 years, 3 months) and 20 age-matched peers participated in a categorical perception task. Children identified and discriminated digitally edited versions of naturally spoken real words in tasks designed to minimize memory requirements. Both groups exhibited all hallmarks of categorical perception: a sharp labeling function, discontinuous discrimination performance, and discrimination predicted from identification. There were no group differences for identification data, but children with SLI showed lower peak discrimination values. Children with SLI still discriminated phonemically contrastive pairs at levels significantly better than chance, with discrimination of same-label pairs at chance. These data suggest that children with SLI perceive natural speech tokens comparably to age-matched controls when listening to words under conditions that minimize memory load. Further, poor performance on speech perception tasks may not be due to a speech perception deficit, but rather to a consequence of task demands.

scholarly journals First-language influence on second language speech perception depends on task demands

2021 ◽  
pp. 002383092098336
Author(s):  
Max R. Freeman ◽  
Henrike K. Blumenfeld ◽  
Matthew T. Carlson ◽  
Viorica Marian
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Speech Perception ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Metalinguistic Awareness ◽  
Lexical Representations ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
L2 Processing ◽  
Word Discrimination

While listening to non-native speech, second language users filter the auditory input through their native language. We examined how bilinguals perceived second language (L2 English) sound sequences that conflicted with native-language (L1 Spanish) constraints across three experiments with different task demands. We used the L1 Spanish phonotactic constraint (i.e., rule for combining speech sounds) that vowels must precede s+consonant clusters (e.g., Spanish: estricto, “strict”). This L1 Spanish constraint may influence Spanish-English bilinguals’ processing of L2 English words such as strict because of a missing initial vowel, as in estrict. We found that the extent to which bilinguals were influenced by the L1 during L2 processing depended on task demands. When metalinguistic awareness demands were low, as in the AX word discrimination task (Experiment 1), cross-linguistic effects were not observed. When metalinguistic awareness demands were high, as in the vowel detection (Experiment 2) and lexical decision (Experiment 3) tasks, response times demonstrated that bilinguals were influenced by the L1 constraint when processing L2 words beginning with an s+consonant. We conclude that bilinguals are cross-linguistically influenced by L1 phonotactic constraints during L2 processing when metalinguistic demands are higher, suggesting that L2 input may be mapped onto L1 sub-lexical representations during perception. These results extend previous research on language co-activation and speech perception by providing a more fine-grained understanding of task demands and elucidating when and where cross-linguistic phonotactic access is present during bilingual comprehension.

scholarly journals Poor Speech Perception Is Not a Core Deficit of Childhood Apraxia of Speech: Preliminary Findings

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 583-592 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Zuk ◽  
Jenya Iuzzini-Seigel ◽  
Kathryn Cabbage ◽  
Jordan R. Green ◽  
Tiffany P. Hogan
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Motor Planning ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Apraxia Of Speech ◽  
Speech Delay ◽  
Childhood Apraxia Of Speech ◽  
Core Deficit ◽  
Language Assessments ◽  
Speech Motor

Purpose Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is hypothesized to arise from deficits in speech motor planning and programming, but the influence of abnormal speech perception in CAS on these processes is debated. This study examined speech perception abilities among children with CAS with and without language impairment compared to those with language impairment, speech delay, and typically developing peers. Method Speech perception was measured by discrimination of synthesized speech syllable continua that varied in frequency (/dɑ/–/ɡɑ/). Groups were classified by performance on speech and language assessments and compared on syllable discrimination thresholds. Within-group variability was also evaluated. Results Children with CAS without language impairment did not significantly differ in syllable discrimination compared to typically developing peers. In contrast, those with CAS and language impairment showed significantly poorer syllable discrimination abilities compared to children with CAS only and typically developing peers. Children with speech delay and language impairment also showed significantly poorer discrimination abilities, with appreciable within-group variability. Conclusions These findings suggest that speech perception deficits are not a core feature of CAS but rather occur with co-occurring language impairment in a subset of children with CAS. This study establishes the significance of accounting for language ability in children with CAS. Supplemental Materials https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.5848056

scholarly journals Plasticity in the Human Speech Motor System Drives Changes in Speech Perception

2014 ◽  
Vol 34 (31) ◽  
pp. 10339-10346 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. R. Lametti ◽  
A. Rochet-Capellan ◽  
E. Neufeld ◽  
D. M. Shiller ◽  
D. J. Ostry
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Motor System ◽  
Human Speech ◽  
Speech Motor

Cognitive Load Affects Speech Motor Performance Differently in Older and Younger Adults

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (5) ◽  
pp. 1258-1277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan K. MacPherson
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Load ◽  
Motor Performance ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Incongruent Condition ◽  
Sentence Production ◽  
Movement Duration ◽  
Production Task ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Speech Motor

PurposeThe aim of this study was to determine the impact of cognitive load imposed by a speech production task on the speech motor performance of healthy older and younger adults. Response inhibition, selective attention, and working memory were the primary cognitive processes of interest.MethodTwelve healthy older and 12 healthy younger adults produced multiple repetitions of 4 sentences containing an embedded Stroop task in 2 cognitive load conditions: congruent and incongruent. The incongruent condition, which required participants to suppress orthographic information to say the font colors in which color words were written, represented an increase in cognitive load relative to the congruent condition in which word text and font color matched. Kinematic measures of articulatory coordination variability and movement duration as well as a behavioral measure of sentence production accuracy were compared between groups and conditions and across 3 sentence segments (pre-, during-, and post-Stroop).ResultsIncreased cognitive load in the incongruent condition was associated with increased articulatory coordination variability and movement duration, compared to the congruent Stroop condition, for both age groups. Overall, the effect of increased cognitive load was greater for older adults than younger adults and was greatest in the portion of the sentence in which cognitive load was manipulated (during-Stroop), followed by the pre-Stroop segment. Sentence production accuracy was reduced for older adults in the incongruent condition.ConclusionsIncreased cognitive load involving response inhibition, selective attention, and working memory processes within a speech production task disrupted both the stability and timing with which speech was produced by both age groups. Older adults' speech motor performance may have been more affected due to age-related changes in cognitive and motoric functions that result in altered motor cognition.

Auditory Training to Improve Speech Perception and Self-Efficacy in Aging Adults

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 1270-1281
Author(s):  
Leah Fostick ◽  
Riki Taitelbaum-Swead ◽  
Shulamith Kreitler ◽  
Shelly Zokraut ◽  
Miriam Billig
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Temporal Order Judgment ◽  
Auditory Training ◽  
Intensity Discrimination ◽  
Training Design ◽  
Auditory Temporal Processing ◽  
Temporal Properties ◽  
Computer Based ◽  
Aging Adults

Purpose Difficulty in understanding spoken speech is a common complaint among aging adults, even when hearing impairment is absent. Correlational studies point to a relationship between age, auditory temporal processing (ATP), and speech perception but cannot demonstrate causality unlike training studies. In the current study, we test (a) the causal relationship between a spatial–temporal ATP task (temporal order judgment [TOJ]) and speech perception among aging adults using a training design and (b) whether improvement in aging adult speech perception is accompanied by improved self-efficacy. Method Eighty-two participants aged 60–83 years were randomly assigned to a group receiving (a) ATP training (TOJ) over 14 days, (b) non-ATP training (intensity discrimination) over 14 days, or (c) no training. Results The data showed that TOJ training elicited improvement in all speech perception tests, which was accompanied by increased self-efficacy. Neither improvement in speech perception nor self-efficacy was evident following non-ATP training or no training. Conclusions There was no generalization of the improvement resulting from TOJ training to intensity discrimination or generalization of improvement resulting from intensity discrimination training to speech perception. These findings imply that the effect of TOJ training on speech perception is specific and such improvement is not simply the product of generally improved auditory perception. It provides support for the idea that temporal properties of speech are indeed crucial for speech perception. Clinically, the findings suggest that aging adults can be trained to improve their speech perception, specifically through computer-based auditory training, and this may improve perceived self-efficacy.

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