The role of auditory feedback in sequence production

当我们说话和唱歌时，我们不仅发出声音，而且还能听到我们发出的声音。聋哑人的讲话，或者在一个巨大的回荡大厅里唱国歌所经历的困难，都突显了监控我们自己声音的重要性。然而，从过去的研究中得到的令人困惑的证据表明，知觉反馈在行动的执行中起着有限的作用。Peter Q. Pfordresher博士将在美国国家科学基金会的支持下进一步探索这个谜题。他研究的关键问题是，行动的流畅程度在多大程度上依赖于对行动结果的感知？这项资助的研究关注的是人们在弹钢琴时听到的声音。在这项研究中，参与者通过耳机听自己演奏记忆中的短旋律。在某些表演中，表演者听到的声音以各种方式偏离所产生的动作。例如，一个人可能在按下一个键时听到错误的音高，可能在延迟后听到正确的音高，或者根本听不到任何声音。过去的这类研究表明，一些偏差比其他偏差更具破坏性，不同类型的偏差会破坏不同的绩效特征。这项资助研究的更广泛影响最终将包括理解在某些疾病（如口吃）中协调性出错的方式。

When we speak and sing we not only produce sounds, but also hear the sounds we produce. The importance of monitoring our own sounds is dramatized by the speech of deaf persons, or the difficulty experienced when singing the national anthem in a large, reverberating hall. However, puzzling evidence from past research would suggest that perceptual feedback plays a limited role in the execution of actions. Dr. Peter Q. Pfordresher will further explore this puzzle with support from the National Science Foundation. The key question of his research is to what extent does fluency in action rely on perceiving the results of one's actions? The funded research focuses on the sounds people hear while they play melodies on the piano. In this research, participants perform short melodies from memory while listening to themselves over headphones. During certain performances, the sounds the performer hears deviate in various ways from the produced actions. For example, one might hear the wrong musical pitch when a key is pressed, might hear the correct pitch after a delay, or hear nothing at all. Past research of this sort has revealed that some deviations are more disruptive than others, and different kinds of deviations disrupt different characteristics of performance. The Broader Impacts of the funded research will ultimately include understanding the way coordination goes awry in certain disorders such as stuttering.