利用超聲波影像檢視由上而下的預測對於發聲動作活化的效用

Articulatory movement is an integral part of human communication. It has been shown that the speech motor system is recruited even when we are listening. The activation of speech motor system could be highly influenced by top-down prediction. This study investigated the effect of top-down prediction in picture naming. The results show that articulatory adjustments were made at the vowel onset when there was a mismatch between predicted words and to-be-said words. The tongue tip tended to lower down in the mismatched condition. It seems that we react to the unexpected words at the early time course of speech motor activation.