Hierarchical dynamic coding coordinates speech comprehension in the human brain.

ABSTRACT: Speech comprehension involves transforming an acoustic waveform into meaning. To do so, the human brain generates a hierarchy of features that converts the sensory input into increasingly abstract language properties. However, little is known about how rapid incoming sequences of hierarchical features are continuously coordinated. Here, we propose that each language feature is supported by a dynamic neural code, which represents the sequence history of hierarchical features in parallel. To test this 'Hierarchical Dynamic Coding' (HDC) hypothesis, we use time-resolved decoding of brain activity to track the construction, maintenance, and update of a comprehensive hierarchy of language features spanning phonetic, word form, lexical-syntactic, syntactic and semantic representations. For this,

SUBMITTER: Gwilliams L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11042271 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature