Abstract
The cortical regions involved in the different stages of speech production are relatively well-established, but their spatio-temporal dynamics remain poorly understood. In particular, the available studies have characterized neural events with respect to the onset of the stimulus triggering a verbal response. The core aspect of language production, however, is not perception but action. In this context, the most relevant question may not be how long after a stimulus brain events happen, but rather how long before the production act do they occur. We investigated speech production-related brain activity time-locked to vocal onset, in addition to the common stimulus-locked approach. We report the detailed temporal interplay between medial and left frontal activities occurring shortly before vocal onset. We interpret those as reflections of, respectively, word selection and word production processes. This medial-lateral organization is in line with that described in non-linguistic action control, suggesting that similar processes are at play in word production and non-linguistic action production. This novel view of the brain dynamics underlying word production provides a useful background for future investigations of the spatio-temporal brain dynamics that lead to the production of verbal responses.
Highlights
Producing language is one of our most commonly used faculties
Before reporting the word production experiment we conducted on the above premise(s), we briefly review the broader context for our study, namely the evidence available on the brain regions and temporal dynamics involved of word production
We described a detailed sequence of activities that occur prior to overt speech production in a simple picture naming task
Summary
Producing language is one of our most commonly used faculties. Everyday, we use speech for a variety of motivations and purposes. In previous neurophysiological investigations of language production, neural events associated to linguistic processes have generally been characterized solely with respect to stimulus onset [5]. This stimulus-locked approach, presumably inspired by previous research on language processing where comprehension processes were at stake, is undoubtedly reinforced by the fear of electro-myographic (EMG) articulation artifacts. This approach has brought valuable information regarding the timing of various processes, it may be suboptimal to clearly dissociate the so-called ‘‘lead-in’’ processes linked to the identification of the stimulus (as defined by [5]), from actual linguistic processes. In the context of laboratory experiments, the most relevant question may not be how long after the stimulus brain events happen, but rather how long before the production act do they occur
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