The effect of imagination on stimulation: The functional specificity of efference copies in speech processing

  • Authors:

  • Xing Tian;David Poeppel

  • Affiliations:

  • -;-

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Year:
  • 2013

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Abstract

The computational role of efference copies is widely appreciated in action and perception research, but their properties for speech processing remain murky. We tested the functional specificity of auditory efference copies using magnetoencephalography recordings in an unconventional pairing: We used a classical cognitive manipulation mental imagery-to elicit internal simulation and estimation with a well-established experimental paradigm one shot repetition-to assess neuronal specificity. Participants performed tasks that differentially implicated internal prediction of sensory consequences overt speaking, imagined speaking, and imagined hearing and their modulatory effects on the perception of an auditory syllable probe were assessed. Remarkably, the neural responses to overt syllable probes vary systematically, both in terms of directionality suppression, enhancement and temporal dynamics early, late, as a function of the preceding covert mental imagery adaptor. We show, in the context of a dual-pathway model, that internal simulation shapes perception in a context-dependent manner.