Review abstract
Focus on Hearing
- Focus issue:
- Junember 2009 Volume 12, No 6
Nature Neuroscience 12, 718 - 724 (2009)
Published online: 26 May 2009 | Corrected online: 17 June 2009 | doi:10.1038/nn.2331
Maps and streams in the auditory cortex: nonhuman primates illuminate human speech processing
Josef P Rauschecker1,2 & Sophie K Scott3
Abstract
Speech and language are considered uniquely human abilities: animals have communication systems, but they do not match human linguistic skills in terms of recursive structure and combinatorial power. Yet, in evolution, spoken language must have emerged from neural mechanisms at least partially available in animals. In this paper, we will demonstrate how our understanding of speech perception, one important facet of language, has profited from findings and theory in nonhuman primate studies. Chief among these are physiological and anatomical studies showing that primate auditory cortex, across species, shows patterns of hierarchical structure, topographic mapping and streams of functional processing. We will identify roles for different cortical areas in the perceptual processing of speech and review functional imaging work in humans that bears on our understanding of how the brain decodes and monitors speech. A new model connects structures in the temporal, frontal and parietal lobes linking speech perception and production.
- Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA.
- Centre of Excellence in Computational Complex Systems Research, Department of Biomedical Engineering and Computational Science, Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland.
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK.
Correspondence to: Josef P Rauschecker1,2 e-mail: rauschej@georgetown.edu
Correspondence to: Sophie K Scott3 e-mail: sophie.scott@ucl.ac.uk
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