The effect of articulatory suppression on speech perception originates from phonological rather than motor interference

Carneiro, Sarah;Patri, Jean-François;Vannuscorps, Gilles;et.al.
(2023) Groupe de contact FNRS en Psycholinguisitique & Neurolinguistique — Location: Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium (8.December.2023)

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The execution of silent articulatory lip or tongue movements is known to affect the perception of corresponding (lip or tongue related) speech sounds. This finding is often considered evidence that speech perception is supported by motor articulatory resources (the motor interpretation). However, the execution of silent articulatory movements involves also the auditory/phonological system, to which articulatory representations are connected in the service of speech motor control. Hence, the reported effect could be a by-product of the activation of phonological rather than motor representations (the phonological interpretation). To discriminate these two interpretations, we determined the minimal signal/noise ratio (SNRdb) at which participants could discriminate two pairs of syllables (bilabial / lingual and lingual / lingual) while performing either a repetitive movement of the finger or a speech-related lip movement (Exp 1); a non-speech-related lip movement (Exp 2) or both (Exp 3). The execution of the movements was analyzed and controlled. All lip movements mobilize lip motor representations, but only speech-related movement activate auditory/phonological representations. Therefore, if the motor interpretation is true, both types of lip movements should affect disproportionately the perception of lip-related speech sounds (vs. non-lip-related speech sounds). In contrast with this prediction, only the execution of speech-related lip movements (Exp 1 & 3) interfered significantly more with the perception of lip-related than non-lip-related speech sounds. These findings invite revision of previous results claimed to support the motor theory of speech perception.
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Carneiro, S., Patri, J.-F., Vannuscorps, G., & et al. (2023). The effect of articulatory suppression on speech perception originates from phonological rather than motor interference. Groupe de contact FNRS en Psycholinguisitique & Neurolinguistique, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/30224