Motor cortex compensates for lack of sensory and motor experience during auditory speech perception

Listening to speech has been shown to activate motor regions, as measured by corticobulbar excitability. In this experiment, we explored if motor regions are also recruited during listening to non-native speech, for which we lack both sensory and motor experience. By administering Transcranial Magne...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Schmitz, Judith, 1984-, Bartoli, Eleonora, Maffongelli, Laura, Fadiga, Luciano, Sebastián Gallés, Núria, D'Ausilio, Alessandro
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2018
País:España
Institución:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repositorio:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:10230/33712
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10230/33712
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.01.006
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Speech perception
Speech production
Native language
Non-native language
Motor evoked potentials
Transcranial magnetic stimulation
Descripción
Sumario:Listening to speech has been shown to activate motor regions, as measured by corticobulbar excitability. In this experiment, we explored if motor regions are also recruited during listening to non-native speech, for which we lack both sensory and motor experience. By administering Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) over the left motor cortex we recorded corticobulbar excitability of the lip muscles when Italian participants listened to native-like and non-native German vowels. Results showed that lip corticobulbar excitability increased for a combination of lip use during articulation and non-nativeness of the vowels. Lip corticobulbar excitability was further related to measures obtained in perception and production tasks showing a negative relationship with nativeness ratings and a positive relationship with the uncertainty of lip movement during production of the vowels. These results suggest an active and compensatory role of the motor system during listening to perceptually/articulatory unfamiliar phonemes.