Synchrony of Θ - Oscillations in Speech Perception and Speech Production

Authors: Harald Höge

Abstract:

In speech perception auditory θ - oscillations play an important role in segmenting speech into syllables [1]. Yet, due to imperfections in cortical measurements, the mechanism to create these θ – oscillations from the auditory signal is far away to be understood. The paper works with the hypothesis, that in speech production the timing to activate motor programs steering articulatory gestures for generating syllables can be modeled by articulatory θ – oscillations. As the movements of the articulators can be measured directly with electromagnetic articulography, we assume that the mechanism to generate articulatory θ – oscillations can be understood easier. This knowledge of this articulatory mechanism can be used to understand the mechanism for generating auditory θ – oscillations. The precondition of this approach demands, that the auditory and articulatory θ – oscillations are in synchrony in phase and duration neglecting a constant delay between the two oscillations. The goal of the paper is to proof this synchrony. First experimental investigations show the feasibility of this new approach.