Are cortical oscillations a useful ingredient of speech perception?
| Anne-Lise Giraud, Neuroscience Center, University of Geneva, Switzerland |
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Neuronal oscillations are ubiquitous in the brain and may contribute to cognition in a number of ways, for example by segregating information and organizing spike timing. Recent data show that delta, theta, and gamma oscillations are specifically engaged by the multi-timescale, quasi-rhythmic properties of speech and can track its dynamics. I will present theoretical and experimental data suggesting that auditory cortical oscillatory neural behaviour play a foundational role in speech and language processing by ‘packaging’ incoming information into units of the appropriate temporal granularity, and enabling their readout by higher order brain areas.
