Collaboration and results in research on speech motor control

Abstract

Research on speech motor control was conducted in the Speech Communication Group in R.L.E. at M.I.T. between 1965 and 2012. Virtually all of this work was collaborative—with participation of group members and colleagues from other institutions in the United States and abroad. The work dealt with various aspects of speech production, including properties of the production and perception mechanisms and their influences on observed behaviors and control strategies. Examples will be presented that illustrate the indispensable roles of collaborators in studies of motor equivalence, relations between production and perception and the roles of feedback and feedforward control. Collaborators’ contributions were based on their expertise in a number of areas, including: electrical and biomedical engineering, experimental psychology, acoustic phonetics, speech perception, statistical analysis, neuro-computational modeling, and design of sophisticated hardware and software. These examples demonstrate how such collaborations were essential to a productive output of research findings and theoretical advances for over four decades. [Research supported by NINCDS and NIDCD, NIH.]