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Updated: May 15, 2026

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
Published on: July 1, 2015
Neuronal oscillations and speech perception: critical-band temporal envelopes are the essence
Oded Ghitza1, Anne-Lise Giraud, David Poeppel
1Biomedical Engineering, Boston University Boston, MA, USA.
Abstract:
A RECENT OPINION ARTICLE (NEURAL OSCILLATIONS IN SPEECH: do not be enslaved by the envelope. Obleser et al., 2012) questions the validity of a class of speech perception models inspired by the possible role of neuronal oscillations in decoding speech (e.g., Ghitza, 2011; Giraud and Poeppel, 2012). The authors criticize, in particular, what they see as an over-emphasis of the role of temporal speech envelope information, and an over-emphasis of entrainment to the input rhythm while neglecting the role of top-down processes in modulating the entrainment of neuronal oscillations. Here we respond to these arguments, referring to the phenomenological model of Ghitza (2011), taken as a representative of the criticized approach.
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