Neurophysiological basis of speech perception

言语感知的神经生理学基础

• 批准号: 7741186
• 负责人: Einat Liebenthal
• 金额: $ 32.3万
• 依托单位: MEDICAL COLLEGE OF WISCONSIN
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-07-01 至 2014-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7741186
• 关键词: Acoustics; Adult; Animal Vocalization; Anterior; Area; Auditory; Auditory Perception; Biological; Brain; Buffers; Categories; Child; Code; Development; Dimensions; Disease; Dyslexia; Funding; Human; Language; Learning; Left; Linguistics; Maps; Mediating; Modeling; Motion; Motion Perception; Pathway interactions; Pattern; Perception; Phonetics; Procedures; Process; Property; Retrieval; Role; Short-Term Memory; Specificity; Speech; Speech Perception; Speech Sound; Structure of superior temporal sulcus; Temporal Lobe; Testing; Training; Variant; Visual; abstracting; base; frontal lobe; improved; neuroimaging; neuromechanism; neurophysiology; novel; phonology; public health relevance; rehearsal; relating to nervous system; research study; sound; spatiotemporal; speech processing; vocalization

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We propose to continue to study the neurophysiological basis of speech perception with particular emphasis on the role in auditory and phonemic perception of middle and posterior fields in and near the left superior temporal sulcus (STS), using a comprehensive neuroimaging approach in healthy adults and children. The middle portion of the left STS (mSTS), just anterior and ventral to Heschl's gyrus (HG), is responsive to speech utterances including prelexical segments such as isolated syllables and phonemes, as well as non linguistic familiar sounds such as nonspeech human vocalizations and animal vocalizations. Our principal hypothesis is that the ventral pathway from HG to mSTS mediates the highly-efficient process of mapping the sequential, chronological acoustic information in speech waveforms onto linguistically relevant, highly-abstract and categorical representations stored in mSTS. We propose to examine the spatiotemporal organization of this pathway and its specificity for phonemic perception. The left STS posterior to HG (pSTS) has been implicated in the learning of non-native speech and other novel sounds, in the retrieval and rehearsal of speech (phonological processing) and other auditory sequences and in articulatory planning. The pSTS, bilaterally, also responds to the perception of biological motion. Our principal hypothesis is that a region of the left pSTS acts as a working-memory buffer, transiently storing veridical representations with low-levels of abstraction, that retain the sequential, chronological properties of sounds necessary for phonological processing and articulatory planning. Similarly, regions of the pSTS are responsive to biological motion because of the temporal dimension central to its perception. We propose to examine the common role of this region in speech and biological motion perception and in forming transient veridical representations for novel sounds. Children still developing phonemic perception compared to adults display shallower boundaries between phonemic categories. Children also display a pattern of activation for speech sounds that is more distributed, including left frontal and premotor cortex and a more posterior involvement of the temporal lobes. However, children demonstrate greater plasticity in the acquisition of non-native phoneme categories compared to adults. We propose to compare the ability of children and adults to learn a non-native phonetic contrast, presumably initially through formation of transient veridical representations with low-levels of abstraction in pSTS and eventually through formation of long-term highly-abstract, categorical neural representations in mSTS. We will examine the developing and mature brain with regard to the rate and limitations in the development of phonemic category representations and the neural mechanisms underlying acquisition of phonemic perception. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: In the proposed experiments, we provide a theoretical framework for defining the functional differentiation of middle and posterior temporal regions for speech and auditory perception. Understanding the respective role of these regions may suggest means of improving the treatment of disorders associated with deficits in phonemic perception and in particular dyslexia. Delineating the cortical areas involved in different aspects of speech processing is an important building block in the effort to develop a functional map of the cortex and for optimizing presurgical language mapping procedures. The proposed studies will also inform developmental models of speech acquisition.

描述（由申请人提供）：我们建议继续研究语言感知的神经生理基础，特别强调左侧颞上沟（STS）及其附近的中脑区和后脑区在听觉和音素感知中的作用，采用综合神经影像学方法。左STS （mSTS）的中间部分，就在Heschl's gyrus （HG）的前部和腹侧，对言语话语有反应，包括前词汇片段，如孤立的音节和音素，以及非语言熟悉的声音，如非言语的人类发声和动物发声。我们的主要假设是，从HG到mSTS的腹侧通路介导了将语音波形中顺序的、按时间顺序的声学信息映射到存储在mSTS中的语言相关的、高度抽象的和分类的表征的高效过程。我们建议研究这一途径的时空组织及其对音位感知的特异性。左STS位于HG后侧，与非母语语音和其他新语音的学习、语音的检索和排练（语音处理）以及其他听觉序列和发音规划有关。双侧pSTS也对生物运动的感知做出反应。我们的主要假设是，左pSTS的一个区域充当工作记忆缓冲区，暂时存储具有低抽象水平的真实表征，保留语音处理和发音计划所必需的顺序、时间顺序的声音属性。同样，pSTS的区域对生物运动有反应，因为时间维度是其感知的中心。我们建议研究这一区域在语音和生物运动感知中的共同作用，以及在形成对新声音的短暂真实表征方面的共同作用。与成人相比，仍在发展音位感知的儿童在音位类别之间的界限较浅。儿童还表现出一种更分散的语音激活模式，包括左额叶和运动前皮层，以及颞叶更后侧的参与。然而，与成人相比，儿童在非母语音素类别习得方面表现出更大的可塑性。我们建议比较儿童和成人学习非母语语音对比的能力，可能最初是通过在pSTS中形成具有低抽象水平的短暂的真实表征，最终通过在mSTS中形成长期的高度抽象的分类神经表征。我们将研究发育和成熟的大脑在音位类别表征发展的速度和局限性以及音位感知习得的神经机制。公共卫生相关性：在拟议的实验中，我们为定义言语和听觉感知的中、后颞区功能分化提供了一个理论框架。了解这些区域各自的作用可能为改善与音素感知缺陷有关的疾病的治疗提供方法，特别是阅读障碍。描绘涉及语音处理不同方面的皮层区域是开发皮层功能图和优化手术前语言映射程序的重要组成部分。建议的研究也将为语言习得的发展模型提供信息。