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Li Z, Zhang D. How does the human brain process noisy speech in real life? Insights from the second-person neuroscience perspective. Cogn Neurodyn 2024; 18:371-382. [PMID: 38699619 PMCID: PMC11061069 DOI: 10.1007/s11571-022-09924-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/10/2022] [Revised: 11/20/2022] [Accepted: 12/19/2022] [Indexed: 01/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Comprehending speech with the existence of background noise is of great importance for human life. In the past decades, a large number of psychological, cognitive and neuroscientific research has explored the neurocognitive mechanisms of speech-in-noise comprehension. However, as limited by the low ecological validity of the speech stimuli and the experimental paradigm, as well as the inadequate attention on the high-order linguistic and extralinguistic processes, there remains much unknown about how the brain processes noisy speech in real-life scenarios. A recently emerging approach, i.e., the second-person neuroscience approach, provides a novel conceptual framework. It measures both of the speaker's and the listener's neural activities, and estimates the speaker-listener neural coupling with regarding of the speaker's production-related neural activity as a standardized reference. The second-person approach not only promotes the use of naturalistic speech but also allows for free communication between speaker and listener as in a close-to-life context. In this review, we first briefly review the previous discoveries about how the brain processes speech in noise; then, we introduce the principles and advantages of the second-person neuroscience approach and discuss its implications to unravel the linguistic and extralinguistic processes during speech-in-noise comprehension; finally, we conclude by proposing some critical issues and calls for more research interests in the second-person approach, which would further extend the present knowledge about how people comprehend speech in noise.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhuoran Li
- Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Room 334, Mingzhai Building, Beijing, 100084 China
- Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084 China
| | - Dan Zhang
- Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Room 334, Mingzhai Building, Beijing, 100084 China
- Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084 China
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Zhang X, Li J, Li Z, Hong B, Diao T, Ma X, Nolte G, Engel AK, Zhang D. Leading and following: Noise differently affects semantic and acoustic processing during naturalistic speech comprehension. Neuroimage 2023; 282:120404. [PMID: 37806465 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120404] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/17/2023] [Revised: 08/19/2023] [Accepted: 10/05/2023] [Indexed: 10/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Despite the distortion of speech signals caused by unavoidable noise in daily life, our ability to comprehend speech in noisy environments is relatively stable. However, the neural mechanisms underlying reliable speech-in-noise comprehension remain to be elucidated. The present study investigated the neural tracking of acoustic and semantic speech information during noisy naturalistic speech comprehension. Participants listened to narrative audio recordings mixed with spectrally matched stationary noise at three signal-to-ratio (SNR) levels (no noise, 3 dB, -3 dB), and 60-channel electroencephalography (EEG) signals were recorded. A temporal response function (TRF) method was employed to derive event-related-like responses to the continuous speech stream at both the acoustic and the semantic levels. Whereas the amplitude envelope of the naturalistic speech was taken as the acoustic feature, word entropy and word surprisal were extracted via the natural language processing method as two semantic features. Theta-band frontocentral TRF responses to the acoustic feature were observed at around 400 ms following speech fluctuation onset over all three SNR levels, and the response latencies were more delayed with increasing noise. Delta-band frontal TRF responses to the semantic feature of word entropy were observed at around 200 to 600 ms leading to speech fluctuation onset over all three SNR levels. The response latencies became more leading with increasing noise and decreasing speech comprehension and intelligibility. While the following responses to speech acoustics were consistent with previous studies, our study revealed the robustness of leading responses to speech semantics, which suggests a possible predictive mechanism at the semantic level for maintaining reliable speech comprehension in noisy environments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xinmiao Zhang
- Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Jiawei Li
- Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 14195, Federal Republic of Germany
| | - Zhuoran Li
- Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Bo Hong
- Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Tongxiang Diao
- Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Peking University, People's Hospital, Beijing 100044, China
| | - Xin Ma
- Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Peking University, People's Hospital, Beijing 100044, China
| | - Guido Nolte
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg 20246, Federal Republic of Germany
| | - Andreas K Engel
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg 20246, Federal Republic of Germany
| | - Dan Zhang
- Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China; Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
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Li J, Hong B, Nolte G, Engel AK, Zhang D. EEG-based speaker-listener neural coupling reflects speech-selective attentional mechanisms beyond the speech stimulus. Cereb Cortex 2023; 33:11080-11091. [PMID: 37814353 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhad347] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/04/2023] [Revised: 09/01/2023] [Accepted: 09/04/2023] [Indexed: 10/11/2023] Open
Abstract
When we pay attention to someone, do we focus only on the sound they make, the word they use, or do we form a mental space shared with the speaker we want to pay attention to? Some would argue that the human language is no other than a simple signal, but others claim that human beings understand each other because they form a shared mental ground between the speaker and the listener. Our study aimed to explore the neural mechanisms of speech-selective attention by investigating the electroencephalogram-based neural coupling between the speaker and the listener in a cocktail party paradigm. The temporal response function method was employed to reveal how the listener was coupled to the speaker at the neural level. The results showed that the neural coupling between the listener and the attended speaker peaked 5 s before speech onset at the delta band over the left frontal region, and was correlated with speech comprehension performance. In contrast, the attentional processing of speech acoustics and semantics occurred primarily at a later stage after speech onset and was not significantly correlated with comprehension performance. These findings suggest a predictive mechanism to achieve speaker-listener neural coupling for successful speech comprehension.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jiawei Li
- Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
- Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
- Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee, Berlin 14195, Germany
| | - Bo Hong
- Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Guido Nolte
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg Eppendorf, Hamburg 20246, Germany
| | - Andreas K Engel
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg Eppendorf, Hamburg 20246, Germany
| | - Dan Zhang
- Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
- Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
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Xie Y, Ma J. How to discern external acoustic waves in a piezoelectric neuron under noise? J Biol Phys 2022; 48:339-353. [PMID: 35948818 PMCID: PMC9411441 DOI: 10.1007/s10867-022-09611-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/25/2022] [Accepted: 07/27/2022] [Indexed: 10/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Biological neurons keep sensitive to external stimuli and appropriate firing modes can be triggered to give effective response to external chemical and physical signals. A piezoelectric neural circuit can perceive external voice and nonlinear vibration by generating equivalent piezoelectric voltage, which can generate an equivalent trans-membrane current for inducing a variety of firing modes in the neural activities. Biological neurons can receive external stimuli from more ion channels and synapse synchronously, but the further encoding and priority in mode selection are competitive. In particular, noisy disturbance and electromagnetic radiation make it more difficult in signals identification and mode selection in the firing patterns of neurons driven by multi-channel signals. In this paper, two different periodic signals accompanied by noise are used to excite the piezoelectric neural circuit, and the signal processing in the piezoelectric neuron driven by acoustic waves under noise is reproduced and explained. The physical energy of the piezoelectric neural circuit and Hamilton energy in the neuron driven by mixed signals are calculated to explain the biophysical mechanism of auditory neuron when external stimuli are applied. It is found that the neuron prefers to respond to the external stimulus with higher physical energy and the signal which can increase the Hamilton energy of the neuron. For example, stronger inputs used to inject higher energy and it is detected and responded more sensitively. The involvement of noise is helpful to detect the external signal under stochastic resonance, and the additive noise changes the excitability of neuron as the external stimulus. The results indicate that energy controls the firing patterns and mode selection in neurons, and it provides clues to control the neural activities by injecting appropriate energy into the neurons and network.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ying Xie
- Department of Physics, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou, 730050, China
| | - Jun Ma
- Department of Physics, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou, 730050, China.
- School of Science, Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Chongqing, 430065, China.
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Li Z, Hong B, Wang D, Nolte G, Engel AK, Zhang D. Speaker-listener neural coupling reveals a right-lateralized mechanism for non-native speech-in-noise comprehension. Cereb Cortex 2022; 33:3701-3714. [PMID: 35975617 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhac302] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/03/2022] [Revised: 07/08/2022] [Accepted: 07/09/2022] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
While the increasingly globalized world has brought more and more demands for non-native language communication, the prevalence of background noise in everyday life poses a great challenge to non-native speech comprehension. The present study employed an interbrain approach based on functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to explore how people adapt to comprehend non-native speech information in noise. A group of Korean participants who acquired Chinese as their non-native language was invited to listen to Chinese narratives at 4 noise levels (no noise, 2 dB, -6 dB, and - 9 dB). These narratives were real-life stories spoken by native Chinese speakers. Processing of the non-native speech was associated with significant fNIRS-based listener-speaker neural couplings mainly over the right hemisphere at both the listener's and the speaker's sides. More importantly, the neural couplings from the listener's right superior temporal gyrus, the right middle temporal gyrus, as well as the right postcentral gyrus were found to be positively correlated with their individual comprehension performance at the strongest noise level (-9 dB). These results provide interbrain evidence in support of the right-lateralized mechanism for non-native speech processing and suggest that both an auditory-based and a sensorimotor-based mechanism contributed to the non-native speech-in-noise comprehension.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhuoran Li
- Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.,Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Bo Hong
- Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.,Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Daifa Wang
- School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100083, China
| | - Guido Nolte
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg Eppendorf, 20246 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Andreas K Engel
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg Eppendorf, 20246 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Dan Zhang
- Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.,Tsinghua Laboratory of Brain and Intelligence, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
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Russo AG, De Martino M, Elia A, Di Salle F, Esposito F. Negative correlation between word-level surprisal and intersubject neural synchronization during narrative listening. Cortex 2022; 155:132-149. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2022.07.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/21/2021] [Revised: 02/10/2022] [Accepted: 07/06/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
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Cooperative Behavior Evokes Interbrain Synchrony in the Prefrontal and Temporoparietal Cortex: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of fNIRS Hyperscanning Studies. eNeuro 2022; 9:ENEURO.0268-21.2022. [PMID: 35365502 PMCID: PMC9014979 DOI: 10.1523/eneuro.0268-21.2022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 30] [Impact Index Per Article: 15.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/15/2021] [Revised: 12/09/2021] [Accepted: 03/01/2022] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Single-brain neuroimaging studies have shown that human cooperation is associated with neural activity in frontal and temporoparietal regions. However, it remains unclear whether single-brain studies are informative about cooperation in real life, where people interact dynamically. Such dynamic interactions have become the focus of interbrain studies. An advantageous technique in this regard is functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) because it is less susceptible to movement artifacts than more conventional techniques like electroencephalography (EEG) or functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We conducted a systematic review and the first quantitative meta-analysis of fNIRS hyperscanning of cooperation, based on thirteen studies with 890 human participants. Overall, the meta-analysis revealed evidence of statistically significant interbrain synchrony while people were cooperating, with large overall effect sizes in both frontal and temporoparietal areas. All thirteen studies observed significant interbrain synchrony in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), suggesting that this region is particularly relevant for cooperative behavior. The consistency in these findings is unlikely to be because of task-related activations, given that the relevant studies used diverse cooperation tasks. Together, the present findings support the importance of interbrain synchronization of frontal and temporoparietal regions in interpersonal cooperation. Moreover, the present article highlights the usefulness of meta-analyses as a tool for discerning patterns in interbrain dynamics.
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Lübbert A, Göschl F, Krause H, Schneider TR, Maye A, Engel AK. Socializing Sensorimotor Contingencies. Front Hum Neurosci 2021; 15:624610. [PMID: 34602990 PMCID: PMC8480310 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2021.624610] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/31/2020] [Accepted: 08/24/2021] [Indexed: 12/27/2022] Open
Abstract
The aim of this review is to highlight the idea of grounding social cognition in sensorimotor interactions shared across agents. We discuss an action-oriented account that emerges from a broader interpretation of the concept of sensorimotor contingencies. We suggest that dynamic informational and sensorimotor coupling across agents can mediate the deployment of action-effect contingencies in social contexts. We propose this concept of socializing sensorimotor contingencies (socSMCs) as a shared framework of analysis for processes within and across brains and bodies, and their physical and social environments. In doing so, we integrate insights from different fields, including neuroscience, psychology, and research on human-robot interaction. We review studies on dynamic embodied interaction and highlight empirical findings that suggest an important role of sensorimotor and informational entrainment in social contexts. Furthermore, we discuss links to closely related concepts, such as enactivism, models of coordination dynamics and others, and clarify differences to approaches that focus on mentalizing and high-level cognitive representations. Moreover, we consider conceptual implications of rethinking cognition as social sensorimotor coupling. The insight that social cognitive phenomena like joint attention, mutual trust or empathy rely heavily on the informational and sensorimotor coupling between agents may provide novel remedies for people with disturbed social cognition and for situations of disturbed social interaction. Furthermore, our proposal has potential applications in the field of human-robot interaction where socSMCs principles might lead to more natural and intuitive interfaces for human users.
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Affiliation(s)
- Annika Lübbert
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Florian Göschl
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Hanna Krause
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Till R. Schneider
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Alexander Maye
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Andreas K. Engel
- Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
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Zhao YJ, Kay KN, Tian Y, Ku Y. Sensory Recruitment Revisited: Ipsilateral V1 Involved in Visual Working Memory. Cereb Cortex 2021; 32:1470-1479. [PMID: 34476462 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhab300] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/28/2021] [Revised: 07/27/2021] [Accepted: 07/28/2021] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
The "sensory recruitment hypothesis" posits an essential role of sensory cortices in working memory, beyond the well-accepted frontoparietal areas. Yet, this hypothesis has recently been challenged. In the present study, participants performed a delayed orientation recall task while high-spatial-resolution 3 T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signals were measured in posterior cortices. A multivariate inverted encoding model approach was used to decode remembered orientations based on blood oxygen level-dependent fMRI signals from visual cortices during the delay period. We found that not only did activity in the contralateral primary visual cortex (V1) retain high-fidelity representations of the visual stimuli, but activity in the ipsilateral V1 also contained such orientation tuning. Moreover, although the encoded tuning was faded in the contralateral V1 during the late delay period, tuning information in the ipsilateral V1 remained sustained. Furthermore, the ipsilateral representation was presented in secondary visual cortex (V2) as well, but not in other higher-level visual areas. These results thus supported the sensory recruitment hypothesis and extended it to the ipsilateral sensory areas, which indicated the distributed involvement of visual areas in visual working memory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yi-Jie Zhao
- Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.,Center for Brain and Mental Well-being, Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510006, China.,Peng Cheng Laboratory, Shenzhen 518055, China.,School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
| | - Kendrick N Kay
- Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, Department of Radiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
| | - Yonghong Tian
- Peng Cheng Laboratory, Shenzhen 518055, China.,School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
| | - Yixuan Ku
- Center for Brain and Mental Well-being, Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510006, China.,Peng Cheng Laboratory, Shenzhen 518055, China
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