New Perspectives on the Role of Sensory Feedback in Speech Production: Volume II

Speaking represents one of our most complex motor behaviors, one that is vital to our ability to communicate. To understand how speech is produced, one crucially important question to address is: how is sensory feedback used in the speech production process? Answering this question is an important step to understanding how the motor skill of speaking is initially learned and then maintained, as numerous studies have shown that sensory feedback plays a key role in these learning processes. There is also evidence that sensory feedback is important for successful moment-by-moment control of ongoing speech output. It is natural, therefore, that significant portions of current models of speech production are devoted to explaining the role of sensory feedback. Furthermore, abnormal processing of sensory feedback appears to be involved in many disorders of speech and voice production, like laryngeal dystonia and stuttering.

Our goal is to gain a more complete understanding of the mechanisms of sensory feedback in speech production. Achieving this goal will take a multifaceted approach. Psychophysical approaches are needed to establish how the speech-motor system responds to perturbations (both natural and artificial) of auditory and somatosensory feedback, and how higher-level functional states (like self-agency) modulate these feedback responses. Functional imaging (like fMRI, and MEG) and other neurophysiological studies (like ECoG) are needed to discern the neural substrate of sensory feedback processing. Developmental studies of how the role of sensory feedback changes as the skill of speaking is learned are needed, as are studies of how sensory feedback processing is changed in neurological and developmental pathological conditions. Finally, the data from all these approaches should inform new and updated models of how sensory feedback interacts with the speech production process.

In this Research Topic, we intend to collect papers reporting on new studies that represent the cutting edge of research into the role of sensory feedback in speech production. Towards this end, we welcome submissions that report on:

• Psychophysical investigations of speakers’ responses to sensory feedback perturbations

• Functional imaging/neurophysiological studies of sensory feedback processing during speaking

• Studies of how sensory feedback processing during speaking changes with development or disease

• Modelling studies that explain sensory feedback’s role in learning and control of speech

With this collection of new studies, we will make progress toward a more complete picture of how speech production makes use of sensory feedback.