Context influence on speech perception : evidence for acoustic-level mechanism across the voice onset time continuum

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Bibliographic Details
Title: Context influence on speech perception : evidence for acoustic-level mechanism across the voice onset time continuum
Authors: Liu, Shun, Liu, Xiqin
Publisher Information: Elsevier
Publication Year: 2025
Collection: JYX - Jyväskylä University Digital Archive / Jyväskylän yliopiston julkaisuarkisto
Subject Terms: top-down effect, speech perception, acoustic level, EEG, multivariate decoding, konteksti, puhe (puhuminen), puheentuotto
Description: Contextual information plays a significant role in shaping our perception of speech, yet it remains uncertain at which level of processing such information integrates with acoustic cues. A key area of debate is whether top-down information influences acoustic encoding within the lower levels of the speech-processing hierarchy. This study employed a machine learning algorithm to decode the voice onset time (VOT) of speech and investigated how the gender of the speaker of a precursor sentence impacted subsequent speech perception. Using EEG recordings, we examined neural responses to a VOT continuum following male and female voices. Our results reveal that a linear representation of the VOT continuum emerged at an early EEG time window and that gender-based contextual cues modulated speech perception at this stage. Notably, since context information was not involved in the decoding procedure itself, we conclude that this modulation reflected the true effects of context on the perception of VOT. Moreover, the contextual influence extended across the entire VOT continuum, not just at specific sounds, suggesting a broad and consistent modulation of speech perception by gender-based context. These findings support the idea of a general acoustic-level mechanism through which contextual information influences the early stage of speech processing, contributing to ongoing debates about the interaction between top-down and bottom-up processes in speech perception. ; peerReviewed
Document Type: article in journal/newspaper
File Description: application/pdf; fulltext
Language: English
ISSN: 1053-8119
Relation: Neuroimage; 310
Availability: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:jyu-202503192643
Rights: CC BY 4.0 ; © 2025 the Authors ; openAccess ; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Accession Number: edsbas.E7FC5CCF
Database: BASE
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