Dataset Information

Modeling Sensory Preference in Speech Motor Planning: A Bayesian Modeling Framework.

ABSTRACT: Experimental studies of speech production involving compensations for auditory and somatosensory perturbations and adaptation after training suggest that both types of sensory information are considered to plan and monitor speech production. Interestingly, individual sensory preferences have been observed in this context: subjects who compensate less for somatosensory perturbations compensate more for auditory perturbations, and vice versa. We propose to integrate this sensory preference phenomenon in a model of speech motor planning using a probabilistic model in which speech units are characterized both in auditory and somatosensory terms. Sensory preference is implemented in the model according to two approaches. In the first approach, which is often used in motor control models accounting for sensory integration, sensory preference is attributed to the relative precision (i.e., inverse of the variance) of the sensory characterization of the speech motor goals associated with phonological units (which are phonemes in the context of this paper). In the second, "more original" variant, sensory preference is implemented by modulating the sensitivity of the comparison between the predicted sensory consequences of motor commands and the sensory characterizations of the phonemes. We present simulation results using these two variants, in the context of the adaptation to an auditory perturbation, implemented in a 2-dimensional biomechanical model of the tongue. Simulation results show that both variants lead to qualitatively similar results. Distinguishing them experimentally would require precise analyses of partial compensation patterns. However, the second proposed variant implements sensory preference without changing the sensory characterizations of the phonemes. This dissociates sensory preference and sensory characterizations of the phonemes, and makes the account of sensory preference more flexible. Indeed, in the second variant the sensory characterizations of the phonemes can remain stable, when sensory preference varies as a response to cognitive or attentional control. This opens new perspectives for capturing speech production variability associated with aging, disorders and speaking conditions.

SUBMITTER: Patri JF

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6824204 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Modeling Sensory Preference in Speech Motor Planning: A Bayesian Modeling Framework.

Patri Jean-François JF Diard Julien J Perrier Pascal P

Frontiers in psychology 20191025

Experimental studies of speech production involving compensations for auditory and somatosensory perturbations and adaptation after training suggest that both types of sensory information are considered to plan and monitor speech production. Interestingly, individual sensory preferences have been observed in this context: subjects who compensate less for somatosensory perturbations compensate more for auditory perturbations, and <i>vice versa</i>. We propose to integrate this sensory preference ...[more]

PMID: 31708828

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Project description:Historically, the study of speech processing has emphasized a strong link between auditory perceptual input and motor production output. A kind of 'parity' is essential, as both perception- and production-based representations must form a unified interface to facilitate access to higher-order language processes such as syntax and semantics, believed to be computed in the dominant, typically left hemisphere. Although various theories have been proposed to unite perception and production, the underlying neural mechanisms are unclear. Early models of speech and language processing proposed that perceptual processing occurred in the left posterior superior temporal gyrus (Wernicke's area) and motor production processes occurred in the left inferior frontal gyrus (Broca's area). Sensory activity was proposed to link to production activity through connecting fibre tracts, forming the left lateralized speech sensory-motor system. Although recent evidence indicates that speech perception occurs bilaterally, prevailing models maintain that the speech sensory-motor system is left lateralized and facilitates the transformation from sensory-based auditory representations to motor-based production representations. However, evidence for the lateralized computation of sensory-motor speech transformations is indirect and primarily comes from stroke patients that have speech repetition deficits (conduction aphasia) and studies using covert speech and haemodynamic functional imaging. Whether the speech sensory-motor system is lateralized, like higher-order language processes, or bilateral, like speech perception, is controversial. Here we use direct neural recordings in subjects performing sensory-motor tasks involving overt speech production to show that sensory-motor transformations occur bilaterally. We demonstrate that electrodes over bilateral inferior frontal, inferior parietal, superior temporal, premotor and somatosensory cortices exhibit robust sensory-motor neural responses during both perception and production in an overt word-repetition task. Using a non-word transformation task, we show that bilateral sensory-motor responses can perform transformations between speech-perception- and speech-production-based representations. These results establish a bilateral sublexical speech sensory-motor system.

Project description:In everyday conversation, we usually process the talker's face as well as the sound of the talker's voice. Access to visual speech information is particularly useful when the auditory signal is degraded. Here, we used fMRI to monitor brain activity while adult humans (n = 60) were presented with visual-only, auditory-only, and audiovisual words. The audiovisual words were presented in quiet and in several signal-to-noise ratios. As expected, audiovisual speech perception recruited both auditory and visual cortex, with some evidence for increased recruitment of premotor cortex in some conditions (including in substantial background noise). We then investigated neural connectivity using psychophysiological interaction analysis with seed regions in both primary auditory cortex and primary visual cortex. Connectivity between auditory and visual cortices was stronger in audiovisual conditions than in unimodal conditions, including a wide network of regions in posterior temporal cortex and prefrontal cortex. In addition to whole-brain analyses, we also conducted a region-of-interest analysis on the left posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), implicated in many previous studies of audiovisual speech perception. We found evidence for both activity and effective connectivity in pSTS for visual-only and audiovisual speech, although these were not significant in whole-brain analyses. Together, our results suggest a prominent role for cross-region synchronization in understanding both visual-only and audiovisual speech that complements activity in integrative brain regions like pSTS.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT In everyday conversation, we usually process the talker's face as well as the sound of the talker's voice. Access to visual speech information is particularly useful when the auditory signal is hard to understand (e.g., background noise). Prior work has suggested that specialized regions of the brain may play a critical role in integrating information from visual and auditory speech. Here, we show a complementary mechanism relying on synchronized brain activity among sensory and motor regions may also play a critical role. These findings encourage reconceptualizing audiovisual integration in the context of coordinated network activity.

Dataset Information

Modeling Sensory Preference in Speech Motor Planning: A Bayesian Modeling Framework.

Publications

Modeling Sensory Preference in Speech Motor Planning: A Bayesian Modeling Framework.

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