Relations between speech sensorimotor adaptation and perceptual acuity

Abstract

The goal of this research is to study the auditory component of feedback control in speech production. This experiment investigates auditory sensorimotor adaptation (SA) as it relates to speech production: the process by which speakers alter their speech production in order to compensate for perturbations of normal auditory feedback. Specifically, the first formant frequency (F1) was shifted in the auditory feedback heard by naive adult subjects as they produced vowels in single syllable words. Results presented previously indicate that the subjects demonstrate compensatory formant shifts in their speech. The current study investigates the relationship between compensatory adaptation and speaker perceptual acuity. Subjects from the SA study were tested for their ability to discriminate vowel tokens differing in F1 frequency. Preliminary results indicate that subjects with greater perceptual acuity also demonstrated greater ability to adapt, with a significant cross-subject correlation (p less than 0.05). The relation between these experimental findings and DIVA, a neurocomputational model of speech motor planning by the brain, will also be discussed. [Work supported by NIDCD Grant R01-DC01925.]