Immediate cross-language transfer of novel articulatory plans in bilingual speech.

Current models of second language (L2) acquisition focus on interactions with a first language (L1) at the level of speech sound targets. In multilinguals, the degree of interaction between the articulatory plans that guide speech in each language remains unclear. Here, we directly address this question in bilingual speakers. We use a sensorimotor adaptation paradigm to drive the acquisition of novel articulatory plans for speech in one language and then measure the extent to which these new motor plans influence articulatory plans in the speaker's other language. Twenty L1-French, L2-English bilinguals adapted their speech production to a real-time alteration of vowel sounds. In one session, the adaptation was acquired during French sentence production; in a second session, the adaptation was acquired during English sentence production. In each session, cross-language transfer of these novel articulatory plans for speech was assessed using a transfer task that involved the production of French and English words with heavily noise-masked auditory feedback. Sensorimotor adaptation that countered the vowel sound alteration was observed in both French and English. Regardless of the linguistic context in which the adaptation was acquired, the adaptation transferred to the production of words in both languages. The amount of transfer did not depend on whether the adaptation was acquired in the participant's L1 or L2. In a second experiment, the result was replicated with 20 L1-English, L2-French speakers. The experiments support the idea that, in bilinguals, the interaction between L1 and L2 articulatory motor plans is rapid and bidirectional. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Speech motor adaptation during synchronous and metronome-timed speech.

Sensorimotor integration during speech has been investigated by altering the sound of a speaker's voice in real time; in response, the speaker learns to change their production of speech sounds in order to compensate (adaptation). This line of research has however been predominantly limited to very simple speaking contexts, typically involving (a) repetitive production of single words and (b) production of speech while alone, without the usual exposure to other voices. This study investigated adaptation to a real-time perturbation of the first and second formants during production of sentences either in synchrony with a prerecorded voice (synchronous speech group) or alone (solo speech group). Experiment 1 (n = 30) found no significant difference in the average magnitude of compensatory formant changes between the groups; however, synchronous speech resulted in increased between-individual variability in such formant changes. Participants also showed acoustic-phonetic convergence to the voice they were synchronizing with prior to introduction of the feedback alteration. Furthermore, the extent to which the changes required for convergence agreed with those required for adaptation was positively correlated with the magnitude of subsequent adaptation. Experiment 2 tested an additional group with a metronome-timed speech task (n = 15) and found a similar pattern of increased between-participant variability in formant changes. These findings demonstrate that speech motor adaptation can be measured robustly at the group level during performance of more complex speaking tasks; however, further work is needed to resolve whether self-voice adaptation and other-voice convergence reflect additive or interactive effects during sensorimotor control of speech. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Reorganization of the Neurobiology of Language After Sentence Overlearning.

It is assumed that there are a static set of "language regions" in the brain. Yet, language comprehension engages regions well beyond these, and patients regularly produce familiar "formulaic" expressions when language regions are severely damaged. These suggest that the neurobiology of language is not fixed but varies with experiences, like the extent of word sequence learning. We hypothesized that perceiving overlearned sentences is supported by speech production and not putative language regions. Participants underwent 2 sessions of behavioral testing and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). During the intervening 15 days, they repeated 2 sentences 30 times each, twice a day. In both fMRI sessions, they "passively" listened to those sentences, novel sentences, and produced sentences. Behaviorally, evidence for overlearning included a 2.1-s decrease in reaction times to predict the final word in overlearned sentences. This corresponded to the recruitment of sensorimotor regions involved in sentence production, inactivation of temporal and inferior frontal regions involved in novel sentence listening, and a 45% change in global network organization. Thus, there was a profound whole-brain reorganization following sentence overlearning, out of "language" and into sensorimotor regions. The latter are generally preserved in aphasia and Alzheimer's disease, perhaps explaining residual abilities with formulaic expressions in both.

Speech Perception under the Tent: A Domain-general Predictive Role for the Cerebellum.

The role of the cerebellum in speech perception remains a mystery. Given its uniform architecture, we tested the hypothesis that it implements a domain-general predictive mechanism whose role in speech is determined by connectivity. We collated all neuroimaging studies reporting cerebellar activity in the Neurosynth database (n = 8206). From this set, we found all studies involving passive speech and sound perception (n = 72, 64% speech, 12.5% sounds, 12.5% music, and 11% tones) and speech production and articulation (n = 175). Standard and coactivation neuroimaging meta-analyses were used to compare cerebellar and associated cortical activations between passive perception and production. We found distinct regions of perception- and production-related activity in the cerebellum and regions of perception-production overlap. Each of these regions had distinct patterns of cortico-cerebellar connectivity. To test for domain-generality versus specificity, we identified all psychological and task-related terms in the Neurosynth database that predicted activity in cerebellar regions associated with passive perception and production. Regions in the cerebellum activated by speech perception were associated with domain-general terms related to prediction. One hallmark of predictive processing is metabolic savings (i.e., decreases in neural activity when events are predicted). To test the hypothesis that the cerebellum plays a predictive role in speech perception, we examined cortical activation between studies reporting cerebellar activation and those without cerebellar activation during speech perception. When the cerebellum was active during speech perception, there was far less cortical activation than when it was inactive. The results suggest that the cerebellum implements a domain-general mechanism related to prediction during speech perception.

The Role of Sensory Feedback in Developmental Stuttering: A Review.

Developmental stuttering is a neurodevelopmental disorder that severely affects speech fluency. Multiple lines of evidence point to a role of sensory feedback in the disorder; this has led to a number of theories proposing different disruptions to the use of sensory feedback during speech motor control in people who stutter. The purpose of this review was to bring together evidence from studies using altered auditory feedback paradigms with people who stutter, in order to evaluate the predictions of these different theories. This review highlights converging evidence for particular patterns of differences in the responses of people who stutter to feedback perturbations. The implications for hypotheses on the nature of the disruption to sensorimotor control of speech in the disorder are discussed, with reference to neurocomputational models of speech control (predominantly, the DIVA model; Guenther et al., 2006; Tourville et al., 2008). While some consistent patterns are emerging from this evidence, it is clear that more work in this area is needed with developmental samples in particular, in order to tease apart differences related to symptom onset from those related to compensatory strategies that develop with experience of stuttering.

The perils of learning to move while speaking: One-sided interference between speech and visuomotor adaptation.

Our understanding of the adaptive processes that shape sensorimotor behavior is largely derived from studying isolated movements. Studies of visuomotor adaptation, in which participants adapt cursor movements to rotations of the cursor's screen position, have led to prominent theories of motor control. In response to changes in visual feedback of movements, explicit (cognitive) and implicit (automatic) learning processes adapt movements to counter errors. However, movements rarely occur in isolation. The extent to which explicit and implicit processes drive sensorimotor adaptation when multiple movements occur simultaneously, as in the real world, remains unclear. Here we address this problem in the context of speech and hand movements. Participants spoke in-time with rapid, hand-driven cursor movements. Using real-time alterations of vowel sound feedback, and visual rotations of the cursor's screen position, we induced sensorimotor adaptation in one or both movements simultaneously. Across three experiments (n = 60, n = 48 and n = 76, respectively), we demonstrate that visuomotor adaptation is markedly impaired by simultaneous speech adaptation, and the impairment is specific to the explicit learning process in visuomotor adaptation. In contrast, visuomotor adaptation had no impact on speech adaptation. The results demonstrate that the explicit learning process in visuomotor adaptation is sensitive to movements in other motor domains. They suggest that some forms of speech adaptation may lack an explicit learning process altogether.

Can perceptual training alter the effect of visual biofeedback in speech-motor learning?

Recent work showing that a period of perceptual training can modulate the magnitude of speech-motor learning in a perturbed auditory feedback task could inform clinical interventions or second-language training strategies. The present study investigated the influence of perceptual training on a clinically and pedagogically relevant task of vocally matching a visually presented speech target using visual-acoustic biofeedback. Forty female adults aged 18-35 yr received perceptual training targeting the English /æ-ɛ/ contrast, randomly assigned to a condition that shifted the perceptual boundary toward either /æ/ or /ɛ/. Participants were then asked to produce the word head while modifying their output to match a visually presented acoustic target corresponding with a slightly higher first formant (F1, closer to /æ/). By analogy to findings from previous research, it was predicted that individuals whose boundary was shifted toward /æ/ would also show a greater magnitude of change in the visual biofeedback task. After perceptual training, the groups showed the predicted difference in perceptual boundary location, but they did not differ in their performance on the biofeedback matching task. It is proposed that the explicit versus implicit nature of the tasks used might account for the difference between this study and previous findings.

Robust Sensorimotor Learning during Variable Sentence-Level Speech.

Sensorimotor learning has been studied by altering the sound of the voice in real time as speech is produced. In response to voice alterations, learned changes in production reduce the perceived auditory error and persist for some time after the alteration is removed [1-5]. The results of such experiments have led to the development of prominent models of speech production. This work proposes that the control of speech relies on forward models to predict sensory outcomes of movements, and errors in these predictions drive sensorimotor learning [5-7]. However, sensorimotor learning in speech has only been observed following intensive training on a handful of discrete words or perceptually similar sentences. Stereotyped production does not capture the complex sensorimotor demands of fluid, real-world speech [8-11]. It remains unknown whether talkers predict the sensory consequences of variable sentence production to allow rapid and precise updating of speech motor plans when sensory prediction errors are encountered. Here, we used real-time alterations of speech feedback to test for sensorimotor learning during the production of 50 sentences that varied markedly in length, vocabulary, and grammar. Following baseline production, all vowels were simultaneously altered and played back through headphones in near real time. Robust feedforward changes in sentence production were observed that, on average, precisely countered the direction of the alteration. These changes occurred in every participant and transferred to the production of single words with varying vowel sounds. The results show that to maintain accurate sentence production, the brain actively predicts the auditory consequences of variable sentence-level speech.

Cortico-cerebellar Networks Drive Sensorimotor Learning in Speech.

The motor cortex and cerebellum are thought to be critical for learning and maintaining motor behaviors. Here we use transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to test the role of the motor cortex and cerebellum in sensorimotor learning in speech. During productions of "head," "bed," and "dead," the first formant of the vowel sound was altered in real time toward the first formant of the vowel sound in "had," "bad," and "dad." Compensatory changes in first and second formant production were used as a measure of motor adaptation. tDCS to either the motor cortex or the cerebellum improved sensorimotor learning in speech compared with sham stimulation ( n = 20 in each group). However, in the case of cerebellar tDCS, production changes were restricted to the source of the acoustical error (i.e., the first formant). Motor cortex tDCS drove production changes that offset errors in the first formant, but unlike cerebellar tDCS, adaptive changes in the second formant also occurred. The results suggest that motor cortex and cerebellar tDCS have both shared and dissociable effects on motor adaptation. The study provides initial causal evidence in speech production that the motor cortex and the cerebellum support different aspects of sensorimotor learning. We propose that motor cortex tDCS drives sensorimotor learning toward previously learned patterns of movement, whereas cerebellar tDCS focuses sensorimotor learning on error correction.

The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue: Review of the role of the motor system in speech perception.

Does "the motor system" play "a role" in speech perception? If so, where, how, and when? We conducted a systematic review that addresses these questions using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The qualitative review of behavioural, computational modelling, non-human animal, brain damage/disorder, electrical stimulation/recording, and neuroimaging research suggests that distributed brain regions involved in producing speech play specific, dynamic, and contextually determined roles in speech perception. The quantitative review employed region and network based neuroimaging meta-analyses and a novel text mining method to describe relative contributions of nodes in distributed brain networks. Supporting the qualitative review, results show a specific functional correspondence between regions involved in non-linguistic movement of the articulators, covertly and overtly producing speech, and the perception of both nonword and word sounds. This distributed set of cortical and subcortical speech production regions are ubiquitously active and form multiple networks whose topologies dynamically change with listening context. Results are inconsistent with motor and acoustic only models of speech perception and classical and contemporary dual-stream models of the organization of language and the brain. Instead, results are more consistent with complex network models in which multiple speech production related networks and subnetworks dynamically self-organize to constrain interpretation of indeterminant acoustic patterns as listening context requires.

Cerebellar tDCS dissociates the timing of perceptual decisions from perceptual change in speech.

Neuroimaging studies suggest that the cerebellum might play a role in both speech perception and speech perceptual learning. However, it remains unclear what this role is: does the cerebellum help shape the perceptual decision, or does it contribute to the timing of perceptual decisions? To test this, we used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in combination with a speech perception task. Participants experienced a series of speech perceptual tests designed to measure and then manipulate (via training) their perception of a phonetic contrast. One group received cerebellar tDCS during speech perceptual learning, and a different group received sham tDCS during the same task. Both groups showed similar learning-related changes in speech perception that transferred to a different phonetic contrast. For both trained and untrained speech perceptual decisions, cerebellar tDCS significantly increased the time it took participants to indicate their decisions with a keyboard press. By analyzing perceptual responses made by both hands, we present evidence that cerebellar tDCS disrupted the timing of perceptual decisions, while leaving the eventual decision unaltered. In support of this conclusion, we use the drift diffusion model to decompose the data into processes that determine the outcome of perceptual decision-making and those that do not. The modeling suggests that cerebellar tDCS disrupted processes unrelated to decision-making. Taken together, the empirical data and modeling demonstrate that right cerebellar tDCS dissociates the timing of perceptual decisions from perceptual change. The results provide initial evidence in healthy humans that the cerebellum critically contributes to speech timing in the perceptual domain.

Cognitive Neuroscience: The Neural Basis of Motor Learning by Observing.

Somatosensory feedback from the limbs plays an essential role when we learn to make new movements. A recent study shows that motor learning can be accomplished purely through observation, and motor learning by observing also critically depends on the brain's somatosensory system.

Plasticity in the human speech motor system drives changes in speech perception.

Recent studies of human speech motor learning suggest that learning is accompanied by changes in auditory perception. But what drives the perceptual change? Is it a consequence of changes in the motor system? Or is it a result of sensory inflow during learning? Here, subjects participated in a speech motor-learning task involving adaptation to altered auditory feedback and they were subsequently tested for perceptual change. In two separate experiments, involving two different auditory perceptual continua, we show that changes in the speech motor system that accompany learning drive changes in auditory speech perception. Specifically, we obtained changes in speech perception when adaptation to altered auditory feedback led to speech production that fell into the phonetic range of the speech perceptual tests. However, a similar change in perception was not observed when the auditory feedback that subjects' received during learning fell into the phonetic range of the perceptual tests. This indicates that the central motor outflow associated with vocal sensorimotor adaptation drives changes to the perceptual classification of speech sounds.

Brief periods of auditory perceptual training can determine the sensory targets of speech motor learning.

The perception of speech is notably malleable in adults, yet alterations in perception seem to have little impact on speech production. However, we hypothesized that speech perceptual training might immediately influence speech motor learning. To test this, we paired a speech perceptual-training task with a speech motor-learning task. Subjects performed a series of perceptual tests designed to measure and then manipulate the perceptual distinction between the words head and had. Subjects then produced head with the sound of the vowel altered in real time so that they heard themselves through headphones producing a word that sounded more like had. In support of our hypothesis, the amount of motor learning in response to the voice alterations depended on the perceptual boundary acquired through perceptual training. The studies show that plasticity in adults' speech perception can have immediate consequences for speech production in the context of speech learning.

Sensory preference in speech production revealed by simultaneous alteration of auditory and somatosensory feedback.

The idea that humans learn and maintain accurate speech by carefully monitoring auditory feedback is widely held. But this view neglects the fact that auditory feedback is highly correlated with somatosensory feedback during speech production. Somatosensory feedback from speech movements could be a primary means by which cortical speech areas monitor the accuracy of produced speech. We tested this idea by placing the somatosensory and auditory systems in competition during speech motor learning. To do this, we combined two speech-learning paradigms to simultaneously alter somatosensory and auditory feedback in real time as subjects spoke. Somatosensory feedback was manipulated by using a robotic device that altered the motion path of the jaw. Auditory feedback was manipulated by changing the frequency of the first formant of the vowel sound and playing back the modified utterance to the subject through headphones. The amount of compensation for each perturbation was used as a measure of sensory reliance. All subjects were observed to correct for at least one of the perturbations, but auditory feedback was not dominant. Indeed, some subjects showed a stable preference for either somatosensory or auditory feedback during speech.

Postural constraints on movement variability.

Movements are inherently variable. When we move to a particular point in space, a cloud of final limb positions is observed around the target. Previously we noted that patterns of variability at the end of movement to a circular target were not circular, but instead reflected patterns of limb stiffness-in directions where limb stiffness was high, variability in end position was low, and vice versa. Here we examine the determinants of variability at movement end in more detail. To do this, we have subjects move the handle of a robotic device from different starting positions into a circular target. We use position servocontrolled displacements of the robot's handle to measure limb stiffness at the end of movement and we also record patterns of end position variability. To examine the effect of change in posture on movement variability, we use a visual motor transformation in which we change the limb configuration and also the actual movement target, while holding constant the visual display. We find that, regardless of movement direction, patterns of variability at the end of movement vary systematically with limb configuration and are also related to patterns of limb stiffness, which are likewise configuration dependent. The result suggests that postural configuration determines the base level of movement variability, on top of which control mechanisms can act to further alter variability.

Impedance control and its relation to precision in orofacial movement.

Speech production involves some of the most precise and finely timed patterns of human movement. Here, in the context of jaw movement in speech, we show that spatial precision in speech production is systematically associated with the regulation of impedance and in particular, with jaw stiffness--a measure of resistance to displacement. We estimated stiffness and also variability during movement using a robotic device to apply brief force pulses to the jaw. Estimates of stiffness were obtained using the perturbed position and force trajectory and an estimate of what the trajectory would be in the absence of load. We estimated this "reference trajectory" using a new technique based on Fourier analysis. A moving-average (MA) procedure was used to estimate stiffness by modeling restoring force as the moving average of previous jaw displacements. The stiffness matrix was obtained from the steady state of the MA model. We applied this technique to data from 31 subjects whose jaw movements were perturbed during speech utterances and kinematically matched nonspeech movements. We observed systematic differences in stiffness over the course of jaw-lowering and jaw-raising movements that were correlated with measures of kinematic variability. Jaw stiffness was high and variability was low early and late in the movement when the jaw was elevated. Stiffness was low and variability was high in the middle of movement when the jaw was lowered. Similar patterns were observed for speech and nonspeech conditions. The systematic relationship between stiffness and variability points to the idea that stiffness regulation is integral to the control of orofacial movement variability.

Control of movement variability and the regulation of limb impedance.

Humans routinely make movements to targets that have different accuracy requirements in different directions. Examples extend from everyday occurrences such as grasping the handle of a coffee cup to the more refined instance of a surgeon positioning a scalpel. The attainment of accuracy in situations such as these might be related to the nervous system's capacity to regulate the limb's resistance to displacement, or impedance. To test this idea, subjects made movements from random starting locations to targets that had shape-dependent accuracy requirements. We used a robotic device to assess both limb impedance and patterns of movement variability just as the subject reached the target. We show that impedance increases in directions where required accuracy is high. Independent of target shape, patterns of limb stiffness are seen to predict spatial patterns of movement variability. The nervous system is thus seen to modulate limb impedance in entirely predictable environments to aid in the attainment of reaching accuracy.