Hearing and seeing meaning in noise: Alpha, beta, and gamma oscillations predict gestural enhancement of degraded speech comprehension.

ABSTRACT: During face-to-face communication, listeners integrate speech with gestures. The semantic information conveyed by iconic gestures (e.g., a drinking gesture) can aid speech comprehension in adverse listening conditions. In this magnetoencephalography (MEG) study, we investigated the spatiotemporal neural oscillatory activity associated with gestural enhancement of degraded speech comprehension. Participants watched videos of an actress uttering clear or degraded speech, accompanied by a gesture or not and completed a cued-recall task after watching every video. When gestures semantically disambiguated degraded speech comprehension, an alpha and beta power suppression and a gamma power increase revealed engagement and active processing in the hand-area of the motor cortex, the extended langu

SUBMITTER: Drijvers L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5947738 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature