Context-dependent coupling and dissociation between speech production and perception in Mandarin tones

We argue in this paper that the coherence between speech perception and production, which the motor theory maintains, lies in the common knowledge about speech production shared by the speaker and the listener. More specifically, we propose that abstract phonemic units are associated with phonetic targets that are articulatorily operable. These targets, however, are usually not fully achieved in speech production. Rather, they are often only approximated by different degrees under the limitation of various articulatory constraints. The process of speech production, therefore, is one in which various phonetic targets are being continuously approximated. As evidence, we will demonstrate with recent acoustic data how lexical tones in Mandarin are implemented through continuous approximation under specific articulatory constraints, how these constraints bring about extensive variations in the F0 contours, and how, despite the variations, tonal targets maintain their integrity in connected speech. We will then further argue that listeners, being also speakers themselves, should be able to discover the intended targets by noting the consistency the speaker manages to achieve despite the articulatory constraints. In other words, listeners hear not just what the speakers do, but more importantly, what they intend to do: We listen to hear what is being said.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Mirror Neurons, the Motor System, and Language – From the Motor Theory to Embodied Cognition and Beyond

Speech production involves an intricate set of actions. Its underlying cognitive mechanisms are thus historically seen as distant from those of speech perception, usually assumed to be a passive process. However, dynamic perspectives on language congregate grammar and language use, approximate phonetics and phonology, and value the role of speech perception in language development. Recent studies argue that speech production and perception are overlaying or at least highly interacting. Some scholars claim that the link between these two processes surpasses the acoustics, as studies have revealed that action also has a role in language comprehension. Phonic gestures are not just mechanisms by means of which one experiences speech production, but are supporting to perception. In this perspective, models interested in L2 development face a twofold challenge: to amalgamate speech perception and production, and to consider that speech transcends the acoustics, since - in a dynamic frame of reference - phonetic-phonological representations are auditory, gestural and general. This paper aims at presenting evidence for a gesture-driven perspective to L2 speech development in which the gesture is a phonological primitive that pervades and connects speech perception and production. By emphasizing a gesture-driven point of view, this work presents congruent and incongruent tenets among some hegemonic models for L2 speech development and an ecological/dynamic account.

Are the same phoneme and lexical layers used in speech production and comprehension? A case-series test of model of aphasic speech production

On the context-dependent nature of the contribution of the ventral premotor cortex to speech perception

The study of spoken communication has long been entrenched in a debate surrounding the interdependence of speech production and perception. This mini review summarizes findings from prior studies to elucidate the reciprocal relationships between speech production and perception. We also discuss key theoretical perspectives relevant to speech perception-production loop, including hyper-articulation and hypo-articulation (H&H) theory, speech motor theory, direct realism theory, articulatory phonology, the Directions into Velocities of Articulators (DIVA) and Gradient Order DIVA (GODIVA) models, and predictive coding. Building on prior findings, we propose a revised auditory-motor integration model of speech and provide insights for future research in speech perception and production, focusing on the effects of impaired peripheral auditory systems.

The objective of this experiment was to quantify and localize the effects of wearing the nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) M40 protective mask and hood on speech production and perception. A designated speaker's vocalizations of 192 monosyllables while wearing an M40 mask with hood were digitized and used as speech stimuli. Another set of speech stimuli was produced by recording the same individual's vocalizing the same monosyllables without the mask and hood. Participants listened to one set of stimuli during two sessions, one session while wearing an M40 mask with hood and another session without the mask and hood. The results showed that wearing the mask with hood gave most detrimental effects on the sustention dimension acoustically for both speech perception and production. The results also showed that wearing it was detrimental on vocalizing and listening to fricatives and unvoiced-stops. These results may be due to the muffling effect of the voicemitter in speech production and the filtering effects of the voicemitter and the hood material on high frequency components during both speech production and perception. This information will be useful for designing better masks and hoods. This methodology also can be used to evaluate other speech communication systems.

ABSTRACTCurrent speech perception models disagree over the role of speech production in speech perception. In the current study we aimed to characterise the relationship between speech perception and production by testing a large sample of early and highly proficient Spanish-Catalan bilinguals in a variety of speech perception and production tasks. Speech perception was measured for different phonological processes (sub-lexical and phono-lexical), different language familiarities (native, second, and unknown language), and different sensory modalities (auditory and audio-visual). Speech production ability was assessed in the second language. Non-linguistic auditory and sensory motor abilities were also measured. We used factor analysis to look at the relations between the variables. Results showed a tight relationship between speech perception and production measurements, which was present across phonological processes and language familiarities but was independent of audio-visual and non-linguistic (auditory and sensory-motor) skills.

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Numerous studies have suggested that the initial phoneme (or syllable onset) plays an important role in speech perception and production. Recent findings have also demonstrated the importance that the number of similar sounding words plays in lexical retrieval during speech perception and production. The results from a picture-naming task demonstrate that the number of words that share the onset of the target word (onset-density) also influences speech production as well as speech perception. Specifically, pictures of words with sparse onsets were named more quickly than pictures of words with dense onsets. These results suggest that lexical and sublexical information interact during lexical retrieval in speech production. The implications for feedforward and feedback models of speech production will be discussed.

Comparison of Mandarin tone and speech perception between advanced combination encoder and continuous interleaved sampling speech-processing strategies in children

Speech perception relies on auditory and visual cues and there are strong links between speech perception and production. We aimed to evaluate the role of auditory and visual modalities on speech perception and production in adults with impaired hearing or sight versus those with normal hearing and sight. We examined speech perception and production of three isolated vowels (/i/, /y/, /u/), which were selected based on their different auditory and visual perceptual saliencies, in 12 deaf adults who used one or two cochlear implants (CIs), 14 congenitally blind adults, and 16 adults with normal sight and hearing. The results showed that the deaf adults who used a CI had worse vowel identification and discrimination perception and they also produced vowels that were less typical or precise than other participants. They had different tongue positions in speech production, which possibly partly explains the poorer quality of their spoken vowels. Blind individuals had larger lip openings and smaller lip protrusions for the rounded vowel and unrounded vowels, compared to the other participants, but they still produced vowels that were similar to those produced by the adults with normal sight and hearing. In summary, the deaf adults, even though they used CIs, had greater difficulty in producing accurate vowel targets than the blind adults, whereas the blind adults were still able to produce accurate vowel targets, even though they used different articulatory strategies.

Mirror neuron system has been investigated using the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technique. Activation of the Broca's area and the premotor cortex (PMC), which related with speech production, were observed during speech perception, and seems to be a mirror. However, it is not clear how the mirror neurons function between speech production and perception. This study attempts to investigate the functions of the mirror neurons by utilizing the high temporal resolution of the Electroencephalography (EEG) system. The participants watched Chinese material from screen then heard the material reading from an earphone, finally made a judgement about the consistency of the two stimuli. The high-density EEG signal under source reconstruction revealed that the Wernicke's area activated before the Broca's area and PMC during the speech perception tasks. Results are also consistent with the mirror neuron system: the speech production related regions are working during the speech perception tasks.

This study introduces a unified computational framework connecting acoustic, speech and word-level linguistic structures to study the neural basis of everyday conversations in the human brain. We used electrocorticography to record neural signals across 100 h of speech production and comprehension as participants engaged in open-ended real-life conversations. We extracted low-level acoustic, mid-level speech and contextual word embeddings from a multimodal speech-to-text model (Whisper). We developed encoding models that linearly map these embeddings onto brain activity during speech production and comprehension. Remarkably, this model accurately predicts neural activity at each level of the language processing hierarchy across hours of new conversations not used in training the model. The internal processing hierarchy in the model is aligned with the cortical hierarchy for speech and language processing, where sensory and motor regions better align with the model’s speech embeddings, and higher-level language areas better align with the model’s language embeddings. The Whisper model captures the temporal sequence of language-to-speech encoding before word articulation (speech production) and speech-to-language encoding post articulation (speech comprehension). The embeddings learned by this model outperform symbolic models in capturing neural activity supporting natural speech and language. These findings support a paradigm shift towards unified computational models that capture the entire processing hierarchy for speech comprehension and production in real-world conversations.

Aims: Patients with the Pendred syndrome suffer very often from a hearing loss. They may be good candidates for a cochlear implantation, but unfortunately, due to the fluctuating character of the hearing loss, they may escape such indication. In the study, we compared speech production and speech acquisition in 2 groups of implanted patients: those with the Pendred syndrome, and standard non-syndromic patients.Methods: Ten patients with Pendred syndrome were analyzed for speech perception and production. The control group consisted of 41 non-syndromic implanted patients. All implantees were scored according to speech perception, speech production, and the sum of both. The data were statistically analyzed.Results: No statistical difference was found in language acquisition and production in implantees with Pendred syndrome when compared to non-syndromic patients with cochlear implants. Nor there was any difference in speech production and acquisition between the 2 compared groups regarding surgical age, time elapsed after surgery, or age during the testing.Conclusion: In this study evaluating language and speech production and acquisition, patients with Pendred syndrome who underwent cochlear implants show comparable results to their implanted peers with deafness of a different etiology.