Speech learning (Image AI Generated)
For years, researchers thought that language was learned primarily by the motor system in the brain, the system that regulates movements of the vocal cords, tongue and mouth. However, a new study of the brain has come along to question this and now suggests that learning speech might require more sensory feedback than previously thought.
The results indicate that the brain learns speech by continually listening to and correcting itself, and not just learning to repeat movements made by its mouth. The results might help experts to understand how language is learned, and how people with brain injuries recover.
The study was recently mentioned and touched on in relation to a study published in neuroscience research that investigates speech adaptation and learning. An important related study for speech motor learning was published in Journal of Neurophysiology. The brain's response to altered auditory feedback and the changes of the corresponding speech sounds were examined.
During the research, participants were instructed to speak and while they were doing this, the researchers changed the sounds of what the participants heard through the headphones very slightly. Despite the slight adjustments, the speakers were able to automatically adapt the way they spoke based on the difference. This presented evidence for adaptive control of speech by the brain in real time.
The most surprising findings were which areas of the brain appeared to have the greatest contribution to remembering these speech adjustments. Previously, it was believed that these speech learning patterns were stored in the motor cortex, the section of the brain that regulates action. But the novel findings indicate that the brain's auditory and sensory areas may be more crucial to holding on to acquired changes in speech. To put it simply, the brain might learn more about speech by "hearing and feeling" than by muscle memory alone.
This reinforces the theory about a feedback system in speech learning, say researchers. As you are speaking, the brain estimates what the speech is going to sound like. It compares the estimation to the actual speech and, if any differences are detected, it rapidly corrects them. These corrections over time are shoved into learning.
This discovery could have important medical benefits. With persons recuperating from stroke, brain injury or neurologic conditions, the goals of the speech therapy might become more targetsensory feedback than the repetition of the speech exercises. The scientists think this may improve patients' ability to regain communication skills.
Results could also aid in understanding natural language acquisition in children. Infants hear speech all around them and make comparisons to what they have to say. Listening, adjusting and repeating can be one of the essential pillars of language development.
Research is still ongoing to fully understand the speech learning mechanism of the brain, experts say. This research however has been a challenge to preconceptions and has led to new methods of exploration of neuroscience.
As the research points out, it also offers a relevant message: speech learning is not a matter of control of the muscles. It is also strongly related to brain structures that are associated with listening, predicting and adapting to sounds.
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