Neural Correlates of Distinctive Features

The project utilizes functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify brain areas involved in processing speech sounds. We make use of simple English minimal pairs, words that differ in just one sound in the same position (e.g. sip vs. zip), to scan pariticipants’ brains while they perform three different kinds of tasks — uttering words out loud (production), listening to words (perception), and saying words internally to themselves without making sounds or moving their mouth (silent speech). The objective of this study is to identity stable neural maps that respond to specific aspects of speech sounds, such as voicing.

Faculty Supervisor:

Charles Reiss

Student:

Partner:

Université Côte d'Azur

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Life Sciences (not health); Artificial Intelligence; Other

University:

Concordia University

Program: