Electrophysiological Evidence for Top-Down Lexical Influences on Early Speech Perception

Getz, Laura M.; Toscano, Joseph C.

doi:10.1177/0956797619841813

Cited by 28 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 38 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Non-auditory cues can also be used to facilitate categorical perception. For example, observing the mouth movements of a speaker or seeing a written representation of a word prior to the obscured sound both facilitated perceptual performance (Sohoglu et al, 2012;2014;Getz and Toscano, 2019;Pinto et al, 2019). For example, providing a written example of a semantically-associated word (e.g., "MASHED") prior to an acoustic representation of a word with ambiguous voice onset time (e.g., "potatoes"), facilitated categorical perception of the initial consonant more than unrelated visual primes (Getz and Toscano, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, observing the mouth movements of a speaker or seeing a written representation of a word prior to the obscured sound both facilitated perceptual performance (Sohoglu et al, 2012;2014;Getz and Toscano, 2019;Pinto et al, 2019). For example, providing a written example of a semantically-associated word (e.g., "MASHED") prior to an acoustic representation of a word with ambiguous voice onset time (e.g., "potatoes"), facilitated categorical perception of the initial consonant more than unrelated visual primes (Getz and Toscano, 2019). This use of cross-modal semantic priming modulated the earliest electroencephalography (EEG) peak examined by the investigators, the N1 peak, thought to be related to primary auditory cortex activation (Hillyard et al, 1973;Näätänen and Picton, 1987).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Top-down inference in the auditory system: Potential roles for corticofugal projections

Asilador¹,

Llano²

2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It has become widely accepted that humans use contextual information to infer the meaning of ambiguous acoustic signals. In speech, for example, high-level semantic, syntactic or lexical information shape our understanding of a phoneme buried in noise. Most current theories to explain this phenomenon rely on hierarchical predictive coding models involving a set of Bayesian priors emanating from high-level brain regions (e.g., prefrontal cortex) that are used to influence processing at lower-levels of the sensory hierarchy (e.g., auditory cortex). As such, virtually all proposed models to explain top-down facilitation are focused on the cerebral cortex, and consequently subcortical nuclei have scarcely been discussed in this context. However, subcortical auditory nuclei receive massive, heterogeneous and cascading descending projections at every level of the sensory hierarchy, and activation of these systems has been shown to improve speech recognition. It is not yet clear whether or how top-down modulation to resolve ambiguous sounds calls upon these corticofugal projections. Here, we review the literature on top-down modulation in the auditory system, primarily focused on humans and cortical imaging/recording methods, and attempt to relate these findings to a growing animal literature, which has primarily been focused on corticofugal projections. We argue that corticofugal pathways contain the requisite circuitry to implement predictive coding mechanisms to facilitate perception of complex sounds and that top-down modulation at early stages of processing complements modulation at later (i.e., cortical) stages of processing. Finally, we suggest experimental approaches for future studies on this topic.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Top-down inference in the auditory system: Potential roles for corticofugal projections

Asilador¹,

Llano²

2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, it is not clear whether this top-down signal reflects actual linguistic content, as opposed to less specific processes like attentional modulation (McQueen et al, 2016). Getz and Toscano (2019) overcame this using the N1 EEG component. The N1 is an early component which reflects a number of low-level auditory processes.…”

Section: Third We Ask If Speech Perception Is Accomplished Entirely mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, do listeners maintain a only a veridical (bottom-up) representation of the input (Firestone and Scholl, 2016, Norris et al, 2000, Lupyan and Clark, 2015 or is perception biased by top-down expectations (McMurray and Jongman, 2011, Getz and Toscano, 2019, Broderick et al, 2019? The present study uses a novel electroencephalography (EEG) paradigm to address three questions concerning the dynamics of processing at different levels of speech perception.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic EEG analysis during language comprehension reveals interactive cascades between perceptual processing and sentential expectations

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Understanding spoken language requires analysis of the rapidly unfolding speech signal at multiple levels: acoustic, phonological, and semantic. However, there is not yet a comprehensive picture of how these levels relate. We recorded electroencephalography (EEG) while listeners (N=31) heard sentences in which we manipulated acoustic ambiguity (e.g., a bees/peas continuum) and sentential expectations (e.g., Honey is made by bees). EEG was analyzed with a mixed effects model over time to quantify how language processing cascades proceed on a millisecond-by-millisecond basis. Our results indicate: (1) perceptual processing and memory for fine-grained acoustics is preserved in brain activity for up to 900 msec; (2) contextual analysis begins early and is graded with respect to the acoustic signal; and (3) topdown predictions influence perceptual processing in some cases, however, these predictions are available simultaneously with the veridical signal. These mechanistic insights provide a basis for a better understanding of the cortical language network.

show abstract

“…However, the phonetic-phonological correspondences differ across languages (e.g., Lisker & Abramson, 1964), and thus the informative variability in talker-specific phonetic idiosyncrasies may be more opaque to listeners when they are identifying foreign-language voices. Higher-level linguistic structure, such as words, guides both the perception and interpretation of ambiguous phonetic information (Getz & Toscano, 2019;Samuel, 1997Samuel, , 2001) and can facilitate phonetic processing even in an unfamiliar language (Samuel & Frost, 2015). Correspondingly, by providing listeners with higher-level linguistic representations through which they can interpret the ambiguous phonetics of foreign language speech, known lexical content may give listeners a scaffold upon which they can extract more information about talker-specific phonetic variation and thus facilitate foreignlanguage talker identification.…”

Section: The Role Of Familiar Words and Higher-level Linguistic Unitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hierarchical contributions of linguistic knowledge to talker identification: Phonological versus lexical familiarity

McLaughlin

Carter

Cheng

et al. 2019

Atten Percept Psychophys

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Listeners identify talkers more accurately when listening to their native language compared to an unfamiliar, foreign language. This language-familiarity effect in talker identification has been shown to arise from familiarity with both the sound patterns (phonetics and phonology) and the linguistic content (words) of one's native language. However, it has been unknown whether these two sources of information contribute independently to talker identification abilities, particularly whether hearing familiar words can facilitate talker identification in the absence of familiar phonetics. To isolate the contribution of lexical familiarity, we conducted three experiments that tested listeners' ability to identify talkers saying familiar words, but with unfamiliar phonetics. In two experiments, listeners identified talkers from recordings of their native language (English), an unfamiliar foreign language (Mandarin Chinese), or "hybrid" speech stimuli (sentences spoken in Mandarin, but which can be convincingly coerced to sound like English when presented with subtitles that prime plausible English-language lexical interpretations based on the Mandarin phonetics). In a third experiment, we explored natural variation in lexical-phonetic congruence as listeners identified talkers with varying degrees of a Mandarin accent. Priming listeners to hear English speech did not improve their ability to identify talkers speaking Mandarin, even after additional training, and talker identification accuracy decreased as talkers' phonetics became increasingly dissimilar to American English. Together, these experiments indicate that unfamiliar sound patterns preclude talker identification benefits otherwise afforded by familiar words. These results suggest that linguistic representations contribute hierarchically to talker identification; the facilitatory effect of familiar words requires the availability of familiar phonological forms.

show abstract

Electrophysiological Evidence for Top-Down Lexical Influences on Early Speech Perception

Cited by 28 publications

References 38 publications

Top-down inference in the auditory system: Potential roles for corticofugal projections

Top-down inference in the auditory system: Potential roles for corticofugal projections

Dynamic EEG analysis during language comprehension reveals interactive cascades between perceptual processing and sentential expectations

Hierarchical contributions of linguistic knowledge to talker identification: Phonological versus lexical familiarity

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About