Sensorimotor control of vocal production.

在整个生命中，当你说话时听到自己的声音，也被称为听觉反馈，是至关重要的。在语言发育过程中，部分或全部耳聋会严重影响儿童的发音质量，甚至会阻止语言的正常发育。此外，越来越多的证据表明，口吃、帕金森病、自闭症谱系障碍甚至精神分裂症患者处理听觉反馈的方式与其他人不同。考虑到听觉反馈对流利言语的重要性，以及要真正理解紊乱的音频-语音整合的影响，我们必须清楚地了解听觉反馈如何调节言语运动行为。这项研究计划的目标是促进我们对大脑如何使用听觉反馈进行言语运动控制的理解。具体来说，我们将1）记录幼儿时期听觉反馈处理的发展概况; 2）确定人们如何对他们在音高和元音产生中听到的错误做出反应的神经生理学相关性;以及3）确定发音能力的个体差异如何调节说话者从发音错误中学习的方式。 为了解决这些重要的问题，我们将要求儿童和成人说话，同时听到他们的声音在真实的时间频率变化。在整个实验中，他们的音高或共振峰（元音）将被改变，这样我们就可以测量说话者做出的纠正反应。我们还将记录事件相关电位（ERP），以评估支持这些感知到的语音错误的处理的神经机制。 在其他实验中，我们将在他们的发声过程中注入人为的不稳定性。在一个会议的过程中，他们会听到他们的声音比平时更多变。与直觉相反，我们预测，暴露于这种嘈杂的听觉反馈将导致扬声器更容易重新映射他们的发音和他们期望听到的听觉反馈之间的关系。 这些研究的结果有可能改变我们对语言和其他自主运动的感觉运动控制的理解

Throughout life, hearing your own voice as you speak, also known as auditory feedback, is critically important. During speech development, partial or total deafness can severely affect the quality of a child's articulations or even prevent the normal development of speech all together. Moreover, there is growing evidence that people who stutter, have Parkinson's disease, autism spectrum disorders, and even schizophrenia process their auditory feedback differently than other individuals. Given the importance of auditory feedback for fluent speech, and to truly understand the implications of disordered audio-vocal integration, it is imperative that we have a clear understanding of how speech motor acts are modulated by auditory feedback. The goal of this proposed research program is to advance our understanding of how the brain uses auditory feedback for speech motor control. Specifically, we will 1) document the developmental profile of auditory feedback processing during early childhood; 2) determine the neurophysiological correlates of how people respond to errors they hear in their vocal pitch and vowel productions; and 3) determine how individual differences in vocal proficiency modulate the way speakers learn from their vocal mistakes. To address these important questions we will ask children and adults to speak while hearing their voice altered in frequency in real time. Across the experiments either their vocal pitch, or their formants (vowels) will be altered, so that we can measure the corrective responses that speakers make. We will also record event-related potential (ERPs) in order to assess the neural mechanisms that support the processing of these perceived vocal errors. In other experiments, we will inject' artificial instability within and across their vocal productions. Over the course of a session they will hear their voice as more variable than it normally is. Counterintuitively, we predict that exposure to this noisy auditory feedback will cause speakers to more readily remap the relationship between their vocal articulations and the auditory feedback they expect to hear. The results of these studies have the potential to transform our understanding of the sensorimotor control of speech and other voluntary motor