title: Visual speech perception without primary auditory cortex activation.
abstract: Speech perception is conventionally thought to be an auditory function, but humans often use their eyes to perceive speech. We investigated whether visual speech perception depends on processing by the primary auditory cortex in hearing adults. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment, a pulse-tone was presented contrasted with gradient noise. During the same session, a silent video of a talker saying isolated words was presented contrasted with a still face. Visual speech activated the superior temporal gyrus anterior, posterior, and lateral to the primary auditory cortex, but not the region of the primary auditory cortex. These results suggest that visual speech perception is not critically dependent on the region of primary auditory cortex.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Neuroscience, 2100 West Third Street, Los Angeles, CA 90057, USA.
authors.forename: Lynne E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Bernstein
authors.forename: Edward T
authors.initials: ET
authors.lastname: Auer
authors.forename: Jean K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Moore
authors.forename: Curtis W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Ponton
authors.forename: Manual
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Don
authors.forename: Manbir
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Singh
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001303:Auditory Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008085:Lipreading; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*