Behavioral and fMRI evidence that cognitive ability modulates the effect of semantic context on speech intelligibility.
Text cues facilitate the perception of spoken sentences to which they are semantically related (Zekveld, Rudner, et al., 2011). In this study, semantically related and unrelated cues preceding sentences evoked more activation in middle temporal gyrus (MTG) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) than nonword cues, regardless of acoustic quality (speech in noise or speech in quiet). Larger verbal working memory (WM) capacity (reading span) was associated with greater intelligibility benefit obtained from related cues, with less speech-related activation in the left superior temporal gyrus and left anterior IFG, and with more activation in right medial frontal cortex for related versus unrelated cues. Better ability to comprehend masked text was associated with greater ability to disregard unrelated cues, and with more activation in left angular gyrus (AG). We conclude that individual differences in cognitive abilities are related to activation in a speech-sensitive network including left MTG, IFG and AG during cued speech perception.
Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Linköping University, Sweden. adriana.zekveld@liu.se
Adriana A
AA
Zekveld
Mary
M
Rudner
Ingrid S
IS
Johnsrude
Dirk J
DJ
Heslenfeld
Jerker
J
Rönnberg
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D013060:Speech; D013065:Speech Intelligibility / Q000502:physiology*; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult