Task-General and Acoustic-Invariant Neural Representation of Speech Categories in the Human Brain.

ABSTRACT: A significant neural challenge in speech perception includes extracting discrete phonetic categories from continuous and multidimensional signals despite varying task demands and surface-acoustic variability. While neural representations of speech categories have been previously identified in frontal and posterior temporal-parietal regions, the task dependency and dimensional specificity of these neural representations are still unclear. Here, we asked native Mandarin participants to listen to speech syllables carrying 4 distinct lexical tone categories across passive listening, repetition, and categorization tasks while they underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We used searchlight classification and representational similarity analysis (RSA) to identify the dimensional

SUBMITTER: Feng G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6454529 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature