Eye movements, prediction tendency and attention in a unified framework of cortical speech tracking

Description

Auditory speech comprehension is a multi-faceted process in which attention, prediction and sensorimotor integration interact with or complement each other. Although many conceptual models that focus on one of these aspects exist, we still lack a unified understanding of speech processing across these topics. Previously, we showed that eye movements track acoustic features of selectively attended speech, even without any meaningful visual information - a phenomenon we termed “ocular speech tracking”. Moreover, we provided evidence that these ocular movements also contribute to cortical speech processing. In a different work we found that “prediction tendency”, which we defined as the tendency to anticipate auditory features of high probability before their occurrence, contributes to explaining differences in cortical speech tracking on an individual level. Here, we try to integrate these two findings into a combined framework for acoustic speech processing. We propose that selective attention differently modulates ocular speech tracking and prediction tendency. While effects of ocular speech tracking can be observed especially during selective attention, the beneficial effect of a strong individual prediction tendency on cortical speech tracking seems to be largely independent of attention. With the current work we try to bridge the gaps between attention, prediction and sensorimotor integration in order to contribute to a holistic understanding of cortical speech processing.

Period	1 Jul 2023
Event title	Cognitive Neuroscience Conference on Body-Brain Waves 2023
Event type	Conference
Location	Salerno, ItalyShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International