Article abstract
Nature Neuroscience 11, 1217 - 1222 (2008)
Published online: 14 September 2008 | doi:10.1038/nn.2193
Speech motor learning in profoundly deaf adults
Sazzad M Nasir1 & David J Ostry1,2
Abstract
Speech production, like other sensorimotor behaviors, relies on multiple sensory inputs—audition, proprioceptive inputs from muscle spindles and cutaneous inputs from mechanoreceptors in the skin and soft tissues of the vocal tract. However, the capacity for intelligible speech by deaf speakers suggests that somatosensory input alone may contribute to speech motor control and perhaps even to speech learning. We assessed speech motor learning in cochlear implant recipients who were tested with their implants turned off. A robotic device was used to alter somatosensory feedback by displacing the jaw during speech. We found that implant subjects progressively adapted to the mechanical perturbation with training. Moreover, the corrections that we observed were for movement deviations that were exceedingly small, on the order of millimeters, indicating that speakers have precise somatosensory expectations. Speech motor learning is substantially dependent on somatosensory input.
- Department of Psychology, McGill University, 1205 Dr. Penfield Avenue, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1B1, Canada.
- Haskins Laboratories, 300 George Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, USA.
Correspondence to: David J Ostry1,2 e-mail: david.ostry@mcgill.ca
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