title: Precise feedback control underlies sensorimotor learning in speech.
abstract: Acquiring the skill of speaking in another language, or for that matter a child's learning to talk, does not follow a single recipe. People learn by variable amounts. A major component of speech learnability seems to be sensing precise feedback errors to correct subsequent utterances that help maintain speech goals. We have tested this idea in a speech motor learning paradigm under altered auditory feedback, in which subjects repeated a word while their auditory feedback was changed online. Subjects learned the task to variable degrees, with some simply failing to learn. We assessed feedback contribution by computing one-lag covariance between formant trajectories of the current feedback and the following utterance that was found to be a significant predictor of learning. Our findings rely on a novel use of information-rich formant trajectories in evaluating speech motor learning and argue for their relevance in auditory speech goals of vowel sounds.
authors.affiliation: Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia; and.
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Vaughn
authors.affiliation: Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois s-nasir@northwestern.edu.
authors.forename: Sazzad M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Nasir
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D025461:Feedback, Physiological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: feedback control; formant trajectory; learning variability; speech motor learning