Somatosensory function in speech perception
- aHaskins Laboratories, 300 George Street, New Haven, CT 06511;
- bResearch Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 50 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139; and
- cDepartment of Psychology, McGill University, 1205 Dr. Penfield Avenue, Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 1B1
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Edited by Fernando Nottebohm, The Rockefeller University, Millbrook, NY, and approved December 4, 2008 (received for review October 7, 2008)
Abstract
Somatosensory signals from the facial skin and muscles of the vocal tract provide a rich source of sensory input in speech production. We show here that the somatosensory system is also involved in the perception of speech. We use a robotic device to create patterns of facial skin deformation that would normally accompany speech production. We find that when we stretch the facial skin while people listen to words, it alters the sounds they hear. The systematic perceptual variation we observe in conjunction with speech-like patterns of skin stretch indicates that somatosensory inputs affect the neural processing of speech sounds and shows the involvement of the somatosensory system in the perceptual processing in speech.
Footnotes
- 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: david.ostry{at}mcgill.ca
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Author contributions: T.I., M.T., and D.J.O. designed research; T.I. performed research; T.I. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; T.I. and D.J.O. analyzed data; and T.I., M.T., and D.J.O. wrote the paper.
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The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
- © 2009 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
