Electrophysiological correlates of categorical speech perception for voicing contrasts in dogs

Abstract

Auditory evoked responses (AERs) were recorded from the left and right temporal and parietal scalp regions of ten 15‐week‐old border collies. The AERs were collected while the animals listened to series of consonant‐vowel syllables in which the consonant sounds varied in voice onset time. Analyses of the brain responses indicated that portions of the right‐hemisphere AERs discriminated between the consonant sounds in a categorical manner. These components occurred between 50 and 180 msec following the speech onset. Results were interpreted to indicate that the basic brain mechanisms subserving some aspects of human speech perception are present in non‐primates.