Facilitation of motor excitability during listening to spoken sentences is not modulated by noise or semantic coherence
Comprehending speech can be particularly challenging in a noisy environment and in the absence of semantic context. It has been proposed that the articulatory motor system would be recruited especially in difficult listening conditions. However, it remains unknown how signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2018
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50575/ |
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| author | Panouillères, Muriel T.N. Boyles, Rowan Chesters, Jennifer Watkins, Kate E. Möttönen, Riikka |
| author_facet | Panouillères, Muriel T.N. Boyles, Rowan Chesters, Jennifer Watkins, Kate E. Möttönen, Riikka |
| author_sort | Panouillères, Muriel T.N. |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Comprehending speech can be particularly challenging in a noisy environment and in the absence of semantic context. It has been proposed that the articulatory motor system would be recruited especially in difficult listening conditions. However, it remains unknown how signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and semantic context affect the recruitment of the articulatory motor system when listening to continuous speech. The aim of the present study was to address the hypothesis that involvement of the articulatory motor cortex increases when the intelligibility and clarity of the spoken sentences decreases, because of noise and the lack of semantic context. We applied Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to the lip and hand representations in the primary motor cortex and measured motor evoked potentials from the lip and hand muscles, respectively, to evaluate motor excitability when young adults listened to sentences. In Experiment 1, we found that the excitability of the lip motor cortex was facilitated during listening to both semantically anomalous and coherent sentences in noise relative to non-speech baselines, but neither SNR nor semantic context modulated the facilitation. In Experiment 2, we replicated these findings and found no difference in the excitability of the lip motor cortex between sentences in noise and clear sentences without noise. Thus, our results show that the articulatory motor cortex is involved in speech processing even in optimal and ecologically valid listening conditions and that its involvement is not modulated by the intelligibility and clarity of speech. |
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| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-50575 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:17:23Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| recordtype | eprints |
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| spelling | nottingham-505752021-09-29T08:06:15Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50575/ Facilitation of motor excitability during listening to spoken sentences is not modulated by noise or semantic coherence Panouillères, Muriel T.N. Boyles, Rowan Chesters, Jennifer Watkins, Kate E. Möttönen, Riikka Comprehending speech can be particularly challenging in a noisy environment and in the absence of semantic context. It has been proposed that the articulatory motor system would be recruited especially in difficult listening conditions. However, it remains unknown how signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and semantic context affect the recruitment of the articulatory motor system when listening to continuous speech. The aim of the present study was to address the hypothesis that involvement of the articulatory motor cortex increases when the intelligibility and clarity of the spoken sentences decreases, because of noise and the lack of semantic context. We applied Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to the lip and hand representations in the primary motor cortex and measured motor evoked potentials from the lip and hand muscles, respectively, to evaluate motor excitability when young adults listened to sentences. In Experiment 1, we found that the excitability of the lip motor cortex was facilitated during listening to both semantically anomalous and coherent sentences in noise relative to non-speech baselines, but neither SNR nor semantic context modulated the facilitation. In Experiment 2, we replicated these findings and found no difference in the excitability of the lip motor cortex between sentences in noise and clear sentences without noise. Thus, our results show that the articulatory motor cortex is involved in speech processing even in optimal and ecologically valid listening conditions and that its involvement is not modulated by the intelligibility and clarity of speech. Elsevier 2018-06 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en cc_by https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50575/1/Facilitation%20of%20motor%20excitability.pdf Panouillères, Muriel T.N., Boyles, Rowan, Chesters, Jennifer, Watkins, Kate E. and Möttönen, Riikka (2018) Facilitation of motor excitability during listening to spoken sentences is not modulated by noise or semantic coherence. Cortex, 103 . pp. 44-54. ISSN 1973-8102 Articulatory motor cortex; Semantic context; Speech in noise; Speech perception; Transcranial magnetic stimulation https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945218300455 doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2018.02.007 doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2018.02.007 |
| spellingShingle | Articulatory motor cortex; Semantic context; Speech in noise; Speech perception; Transcranial magnetic stimulation Panouillères, Muriel T.N. Boyles, Rowan Chesters, Jennifer Watkins, Kate E. Möttönen, Riikka Facilitation of motor excitability during listening to spoken sentences is not modulated by noise or semantic coherence |
| title | Facilitation of motor excitability during listening to spoken sentences is not modulated by noise or semantic coherence |
| title_full | Facilitation of motor excitability during listening to spoken sentences is not modulated by noise or semantic coherence |
| title_fullStr | Facilitation of motor excitability during listening to spoken sentences is not modulated by noise or semantic coherence |
| title_full_unstemmed | Facilitation of motor excitability during listening to spoken sentences is not modulated by noise or semantic coherence |
| title_short | Facilitation of motor excitability during listening to spoken sentences is not modulated by noise or semantic coherence |
| title_sort | facilitation of motor excitability during listening to spoken sentences is not modulated by noise or semantic coherence |
| topic | Articulatory motor cortex; Semantic context; Speech in noise; Speech perception; Transcranial magnetic stimulation |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50575/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50575/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50575/ |