speech perception and semantics

Question 1

which areas of the brain are involved in auditory perception?

Answer 1

from most to least involved:
- Heschl’s gyrus
- planum temporale (complex stimuli)
- superior temporal sulcus (all speech-like stimuli)
- bilateral ATL (left, middle & inferior temp gyrus)
- Broca’s area

Question 2

what is the hierarchical design when it comes to hearing?

Answer 2

a method that relates to which areas of the brain are related to perception of auditory words. it follows this order:
- noise
- tones
- backwards speech
- pseudo words (‘rolp’)
- real words (‘rose’)

Question 3

what ERP component occurs when an auditory stimulus deviates from a previously presented auditory stimulus?

Answer 3

a mismatch negativity (MMN)

Question 4

what does the motor theory of speech perception state?

Answer 4

speech perception and speech production are very closely related because sounds are perceived in the brain when matched to a motor representation by the listener

Question 5

what does ‘amodal’ mean in reference to semantics?

Answer 5

not tied to one or more perceptual systems (i.e. abstract)

Question 6

what is the hub-and-spoke model (amodal feature binding) and what does it propose?

Answer 6

a model of semantic memory that states that the ATL binds features together to create mental concepts

Question 7

what is the functional-sensory theory and what does it propose?

Answer 7

a theory that semantic features are clustered in the brain according to what they are used for (functional) and what their physical properties are (sensory)

Question 8

what are the different theories of semantic organization in the brain?

Answer 8

1. the idea that some categories are hardwired
2. the sensory-functional approach
3. the idea that concepts are fully distributed
4. the feature-binding theory, or the idea that concepts are distributed with amodal representation