Integrating Cognitive and Sensorimotor Systems in Stuttering and Speech Production

社会、行为和经济科学理事会提供博士后研究金，为最近的博士毕业生提供获得额外培训的机会，在知名科学家的赞助下获得研究经验，并在本科和研究生培训之外拓宽他们的科学视野。博士后奖学金还旨在帮助新的科学家指导他们的研究工作，跨越传统的学科领域，并利用独特的研究资源，地点和设施，包括在国外的地点。这个博士后奖学金支持在语音生成，认知科学和神经计算建模的跨学科领域的新兴科学家。言语产生是一项复杂的技能，取决于认知和感觉运动过程的实时整合。当代的言语产生模型很少关注诸如意图、注意和意识等突出的认知过程。进一步了解言语产生过程中认知系统和感觉运动系统之间的关键联系的一种方法是检查典型的和典型的发展系统。这个项目通过利用众所周知的预期现象来研究口吃，一种神经发育性语言障碍。预期是指说话人对即将到来的讲话会结巴的先验感觉。通过病理系统的透镜检查预期和言语行为（即，一个口吃系统）将最终阐明语音研究中的一个基本问题？认知、知觉和行为如何构成言语产生及其发展的基础。这项工作的发现也将具有现实世界的适用性，因为它们将支持为那些经历口吃及其相关的社会和情感后果的人开发量身定制的诊断和临床程序。这项创新的工作结合了计算建模和实证调查，以开发和测试口吃语音产生的模型。它应用了动态场理论（DFT）的原理，这是一种已建立的神经计算建模方法，将认知和感觉运动系统之间的关系形式化。DFT受益于认知科学，数学生物学，运动控制，发展心理学和理论神经科学的最新进展，突出了这项工作的多学科性质。关键是，DFT将实时过程与学习和发展过程相结合。因此，该框架有望有助于理解即时言语行为与其认知基础之间的关系，这些认知基础通常发生在较长的时间尺度上，并且更难以观察。该项目的实验部分采用光学跟踪和功能近红外光谱，允许在行为，运动和神经生理水平的直接比较。该项目的具体目标包括：（1）扩展基于DFT的典型言语产生的初步模型，并试图以反映口吃的方式打破该模型;（2）在一项横断面研究中实证测试该模型，该研究考察了整个生命周期中口吃预期的发展。这一建议也得到了NSF EPSCoR的支持。

The Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences offers postdoctoral research fellowships to provide opportunities for recent doctoral graduates to obtain additional training, to gain research experience under the sponsorship of established scientists, and to broaden their scientific horizons beyond their undergraduate and graduate training. Postdoctoral fellowships are further designed to assist new scientists to direct their research efforts across traditional disciplinary lines and to avail themselves of unique research resources, sites, and facilities, including at foreign locations. This postdoctoral fellowship supports a rising scientist in the interdisciplinary area of speech production, cognitive science and neurocomputational modeling. Speech production is a complex skill that hinges on the real-time integration of cognitive and sensorimotor processes. Contemporary models of speech production pay little attention to salient cognitive processes such as intention, attention, and awareness. One way to further basic understanding of the critical link between cognitive and sensorimotor systems during speech production is to examine typically and atypically developing systems. This project investigates stuttering, a neurodevelopmental speech disorder, by leveraging the well-known phenomenon of anticipation. Anticipation refers to the a priori sense a speaker has that upcoming speech will be stuttered. Examining anticipation and speech behavior through the lens of a pathological system (i.e., a stuttering system) will ultimately shed light on a basic question in speech research?how cognition, perception, and action underlie speech production and its development. Findings from this work will also have real-world applicability as they will support the development of tailored diagnostic and clinical procedures for those who experience stuttering and its related social and emotional consequences.This innovative work combines computational modeling and empirical investigation to develop and test a model of stuttered speech production. It applies principles of Dynamic Field Theory (DFT), an established neurocomputational approach to modeling that formalizes the relationship between cognitive and sensorimotor systems. DFT has benefitted from recent advances in cognitive science, mathematical biology, motor control, developmental psychology, and theoretical neuroscience, highlighting the multidisciplinary nature of this work. Critically, DFT integrates real-time processes with processes of learning and development. Thus, the framework is poised to contribute to an understanding of the relationship between in-the-moment speech behaviors and their cognitive underpinnings that often occur over longer timescales, and are more difficult to observe. The experimental component of this project employs optical tracking and functional near-infrared spectroscopy, allowing for direct comparisons at behavioral, kinematic, and neurophysiological levels. Specific aims of this project include: (1) extending a preliminary DFT-based model of typical speech production, as well as attempting to break the model in ways that are reflective of stuttering; and (2) testing the model empirically in a cross-sectional study that examines the development of anticipation of stuttering across the life span. This proposal is also supported by the NSF EPSCoR.