Speech recognition is an active process that involves some form of predictive coding. This statement is relatively uncontroversial. What is less clear is the source of the prediction. The dual-stream model of speech processing suggests that there are two possible sources of predictive coding in speech perception: the motor speech system and the…

Purpose: The main aim of this experiment was to investigate the perception of Foreign Accent Syndrome in comparison to speakers with an authentic foreign accent. Method: Three groups of listeners attributed accents to conversational speech samples of 5 FAS speakers which were embedded amongst those of 5 speakers with a real foreign accent and 5…

Acquired hearing impairment is associated with gradually declining phonological representations. According to the Ease of Language Understanding (ELU) model, poorly defined representations lead to mismatch in phonologically challenging tasks. To resolve the mismatch, reliance on working memory capacity (WMC) increases. This study investigated…

Our understanding of the neurobiological basis for human speech production and perception has benefited from insights from psychology, neuropsychology and neurology. In this overview, I outline some of the ways that functional imaging has added to this knowledge and argue that, as a neuroanatomical tool, functional imaging has led to some…

Nouns are fundamentally different from verbs semantically and syntactically, since verbs can specify one, two, or three nominal arguments. In this study, 25 children with Specific Language Impairment (age 5;3-8;2 years) and 50 typically developing children (3;3-8;2 years) participated in an eye-tracking experiment of spoken language comprehension…

The brain mechanisms of hearing include large regions of the anterior temporal, prefrontal, and inferior parietal cortex, and an extensive network of descending connections between the cortex and sub-cortical components of what is presently known as the auditory system. One important function of these additional ("top-down") mechanisms for hearing…

The purpose of the present study was to investigate (a) the distortion in production of word-initial friction duration in fricative /[esh]/, and (b) the perceptual discrimination between typical (normal) and atypical (prolonged or lengthened) friction duration. In the first experiment 80 school aged children pronounced word /[esh]uma/, 40 of them…

Purpose: To describe and compare behavioral profiles associated with auditory processing disorder (APD) and specific language impairment (SLI) in school-age children. Method: The participants in this cross-sectional observational study were 64 children (mean age 10.1 years) recruited through clinician referrals. Thirty-five participants had a…

Background: There is minimal research on the contribution of visual information on speech intelligibility for individuals with a laryngectomy (IWL). Aims: The purpose of this project was to determine the effects of mode of presentation (audio-only, audio-visual) on alaryngeal speech intelligibility. Method: Twenty-three naive listeners were…

This longitudinal investigation on Dutch children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) aimed at determining the predictive value of statistically uncorrelated language proficiencies on later reading and spelling skills in Dutch. Language abilities, tested with an extensive test battery at the onset of formal reading instruction, were…

We report two sets of experiments showing that the large individual variability in language learning success in adults can be attributed to neurophysiological, neuroanatomical, cognitive, and perceptual factors. In the first set of experiments, native English-speaking adults learned to incorporate lexically meaningfully pitch patterns in words. We…

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A basic tenet of developmental neurobiology is that certain areas of the cortex will re-organize, if appropriate stimulation is withheld for long periods. Stimulation must be delivered to a sensory system within a narrow window of time (a sensitive period) if that system is to develop normally. In this article, we will describe age cut-offs for a…

This paper addresses effects of age and sex on certain acoustic properties of speech, given conflicting findings on such effects reported in prior research. The speech of 27 younger adults (15 women, 12 men; mean age 25.5 years) and 59 older adults (32 women, 27 men; mean age 75.2 years) was evaluated for identification of differences for sex and…

Speech perception and speech production were examined in 3-year-old Dutch children at familial risk of developing dyslexia. Their performance in speech sound categorisation and their production of words was compared to that of age-matched children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing controls. We found that speech…