Motor engagement relates to accurate perception of phonemes and audiovisual words, but not auditory words.

MedStar author(s):
Citation: Communications Biology. 4(1):108, 2021 Jan 25.PMID: 33495548Institution: MedStar National Rehabilitation NetworkForm of publication: Journal ArticleMedline article type(s): Journal ArticleSubject headings: IN PROCESS -- NOT YET INDEXEDYear: 2021ISSN:
  • 2399-3642
Name of journal: Communications biologyAbstract: A longstanding debate has surrounded the role of the motor system in speech perception, but progress in this area has been limited by tasks that only examine isolated syllables and conflate decision-making with perception. Using an adaptive task that temporally isolates perception from decision-making, we examined an EEG signature of motor activity (sensorimotor mu/beta suppression) during the perception of auditory phonemes, auditory words, audiovisual words, and environmental sounds while holding difficulty constant at two levels (Easy/Hard). Results revealed left-lateralized sensorimotor mu/beta suppression that was related to perception of speech but not environmental sounds. Audiovisual word and phoneme stimuli showed enhanced left sensorimotor mu/beta suppression for correct relative to incorrect trials, while auditory word stimuli showed enhanced suppression for incorrect trials. Our results demonstrate that motor involvement in perception is left-lateralized, is specific to speech stimuli, and it not simply the result of domain-general processes. These results provide evidence for an interactive network for speech perception in which dorsal stream motor areas are dynamically engaged during the perception of speech depending on the characteristics of the speech signal. Crucially, this motor engagement has different effects on the perceptual outcome depending on the lexicality and modality of the speech stimulus.All authors: Medvedev AV, Michaelis K, Miyakoshi M, Norato G, Turkeltaub PEFiscal year: FY2021Digital Object Identifier: Date added to catalog: 2021-02-17
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Journal Article MedStar Authors Catalog Article 33495548 Available 33495548

A longstanding debate has surrounded the role of the motor system in speech perception, but progress in this area has been limited by tasks that only examine isolated syllables and conflate decision-making with perception. Using an adaptive task that temporally isolates perception from decision-making, we examined an EEG signature of motor activity (sensorimotor mu/beta suppression) during the perception of auditory phonemes, auditory words, audiovisual words, and environmental sounds while holding difficulty constant at two levels (Easy/Hard). Results revealed left-lateralized sensorimotor mu/beta suppression that was related to perception of speech but not environmental sounds. Audiovisual word and phoneme stimuli showed enhanced left sensorimotor mu/beta suppression for correct relative to incorrect trials, while auditory word stimuli showed enhanced suppression for incorrect trials. Our results demonstrate that motor involvement in perception is left-lateralized, is specific to speech stimuli, and it not simply the result of domain-general processes. These results provide evidence for an interactive network for speech perception in which dorsal stream motor areas are dynamically engaged during the perception of speech depending on the characteristics of the speech signal. Crucially, this motor engagement has different effects on the perceptual outcome depending on the lexicality and modality of the speech stimulus.

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