Formant transition-specific adaptation by lipreading of left auditory cortex N1m

Neuroreport. 2008 Jan 8;19(1):93-7. doi: 10.1097/WNR.0b013e3282f36f7a.

Abstract

To test for the feature specificity of adaptation of auditory-cortex magnetoencephalographic N1m responses to phonemes during lipreading, we presented eight healthy volunteers with a simplified sine-wave first-formant (F1) transition shared by /ba/, /ga/, and /da/, and a continuum of second-formant (F2) transitions contained in /ba/ (ascending), /da/ (level), and /ga/ (descending), during lipreading of /ba/ vs. /ga/ vs. a still-face baseline. N1m responses to the F1 transition were suppressed during lipreading, further, visual /ga/ (vs. /ba/) significantly suppressed left-hemisphere N1m responses to the F2 transition contained in /ga/. This suggests that visual speech activates and adapts auditory cortex neural populations tuned to formant transitions, the basic sound-sweep constituents of phonemes, potentially explaining enhanced speech perception during lipreading.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acoustic Stimulation / methods
  • Adaptation, Physiological / physiology*
  • Adult
  • Auditory Cortex / physiology*
  • Brain Mapping
  • Dose-Response Relationship, Radiation
  • Evoked Potentials, Auditory / physiology*
  • Female
  • Functional Laterality / physiology*
  • Humans
  • Lipreading*
  • Magnetoencephalography
  • Male
  • Speech Perception / physiology*