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Phonemic Representations and Categories

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Neural Correlates of Auditory Cognition

Part of the book series: Springer Handbook of Auditory Research ((SHAR,volume 45))

Abstract

Current ideas of how the brain extracts phonemic content from the acoustic stream of speech will be discussed. Physiological data obtained from humans and non-human primates will be emphasized supporting modern theories positing that phonemic perception is a categorization task involving the parsing of the speech signal into a multidimensional acoustic space that allows extraction of phonemically relevant features. The importance of temporal processing will be stressed. Speech unfolds over time, and auditory cortex possesses a temporal processing fidelity that promotes both the parsing of the signal into discrete units amenable for speech decoding, and provides directly relevant information for phonemic classification. It will be shown how basic rules of auditory cortical physiology help determine several contextual effects in phonemic perception. The utility of physiology as an independent means to assess hypotheses in speech perception will be considered. Reference will be made to hypotheses proposing how stop consonants are encoded, and those postulating that developmental language abnormalities can be the result of abnormally prolonged temporal windows of integration. Physiologic transformations that occur as processing extends out from primary cortical areas into higher-order cortical regions will be examined. Emphasis will be on summarizing the results of studies using higher spatial resolution techniques, such as those offered by intracranial recordings and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Finally, it will be argued that a modular model of phonemic categorization may not adequately explain speech encoding, and that the process can be better clarified by invoking more dynamic and interactive network mechanisms.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by NIH grants DC-00657 and DC-04290.

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  1. Department of Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Rose F. Kennedy Center, 1300 Morris Park Avenue, Bronx, NY, 10461, USA

    Mitchell Steinschneider

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  1. School of Medicine, Dept. Otorhinolaryngology: Head &, University of Pennsylvania, Spruce Street 3400, Philadelphia, 19104, Pennsylvania, USA

    Yale E. Cohen

  2. , Department of Biology, University of Maryland, 2225 Bio-Psych, College Park, 20742-4415, Maryland, USA

    Arthur N. Popper

  3. Marine Biological Laboratory, 7 MBL Street, Woods Hole, 02543, Massachusetts, USA

    Richard R. Fay

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Steinschneider, M. (2013). Phonemic Representations and Categories. In: Cohen, Y., Popper, A., Fay, R. (eds) Neural Correlates of Auditory Cognition. Springer Handbook of Auditory Research, vol 45. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-2350-8_6

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