The neural representation of temporal phonological structure

Language is a key component of human cognition, and there remain many questions about how the brain processes linguistic information, including questions about how speech sounds are recognized. This project examines how the brain processes the sounds in spoken words as they unfold over time. This process is central to the ability to understand speech quickly and accurately. The information gained from this project aims to ultimately improve understanding of conditions that affect the ability to process language. The project also provides research opportunities for students, as well as opportunities to engage with the public to share what is learned about these topics. The specific goal of the project is to study how the brain processes words that contain the same phonemes in different temporal orders, such as the words "pat" and "tap". Models of spoken word recognition assume that the sequential order of phonemes is part of the way that these words are represented in the brain, but recent work provides evidence for more complex mappings from sounds to words. The project studies how different linguistic factors, such as coarticulation of speech sounds and sentence context, affect the way that human listeners process words that contain the same phonemes. This is accomplished through a series of experiments that measure how these words are recognized and brain recordings that provide a picture of how they are processed as the listener hears them. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.