Speech-brain phase coupling is enhanced in low contextual semantic predictability conditions

Semantic prediction and cortical entrainment to the acoustic landmarks of the speech envelope are two fundamental yet qualitatively different mechanisms that facilitate speech comprehension. However, it is not clear how and to what extent those mechanisms interact with each other. On the one hand, richer semantic context could enhance the perceptual representation of a predictable stimulus, thus improving speech entrainment. On the other hand, pre-activating an upcoming item could inhibit further bottom-up analyses to minimize processing costs, thus weakening speech entrainment. To test these competing hypotheses, we recorded EEG activity from 27 participants while they listened to a 14-min recording of text reading. The passage contained target words presented twice: once in a highly constraining and once in a minimally constraining context. First, we measured event related potentials on target words in the two conditions. In line with previous research, we showed that semantic predictability modulated the N400 amplitude: words in minimally constraining contexts elicited larger negative amplitudes than words in highly constraining contexts between 250 and 450 ms. Second, we evaluated speech entrainment effects by analyzing phase alignment between neural activity and the envelope of target words. Importantly, we found increased speech entrainment for words in minimally constraining compared to highly constraining contexts between 400 and 450 ms. Both effects were located in central electrodes and were significantly correlated. Our results indicate a trade-off between semantic pre-activation and cortical entrainment to speech and support the cost minimization hypothesis.