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Related Experiment Videos

Top-down and bottom-up processes in speech comprehension.

Adriana A Zekveld1, Dirk J Heslenfeld, Joost M Festen

  • 1Department of Cognitive Psychology, VU University, Van der Boechorststraat 1, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Neuroimage
|June 20, 2006
PubMed
Summary

Brain imaging reveals distinct roles for frontal and temporal regions in speech comprehension. Temporal areas process incoming speech, while frontal areas support higher-level understanding, especially with clearer signals.

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Science
  • Auditory Perception

Background:

  • Speech comprehension involves complex bottom-up and top-down neural processes.
  • Previous imaging studies identified a frontal-temporal network active during speech perception.
  • The specific contributions of these brain regions remain incompletely understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the detailed effects of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) on brain activation during speech perception.
  • To elucidate the distinct roles of frontal and temporal brain areas in speech comprehension.

Main Methods:

  • Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was employed in 144 steps of varying SNR.
  • Speech intelligibility was independently measured to correlate with neural activation.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Participants listened to spoken sentences embedded in noise.

    • Main Results:

    • Intelligible speech in noise activated left frontal, bilateral temporal, and medial occipital regions.
    • Increasing SNR showed a sigmoid relationship with activation in the frontal-temporal network.
    • Temporal activation was greater than frontal activation at high SNRs; Broca's area (BA44) responded to unintelligible speech.

    Conclusions:

    • Temporal brain regions primarily support bottom-up speech processing.
    • Frontal brain regions are more involved in top-down mechanisms crucial for speech comprehension.
    • Distinct functional roles exist within the frontal-temporal network for auditory processing.