Academy of Medical Engineering and Translational Medicine, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072 China.
Tianjin Key Laboratory of Brain Science and Neuroengineering, Tianjin 300072 China.
Cereb Cortex. 2023 Nov 27;33(23):11287-11299. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhad366.
In recent years, speech perception research has benefited from low-frequency rhythm entrainment tracking of the speech envelope. However, speech perception is still controversial regarding the role of speech envelope and temporal fine structure, especially in Mandarin. This study aimed to discuss the dependence of Mandarin syllables and tones perception on the speech envelope and the temporal fine structure. We recorded the electroencephalogram (EEG) of the subjects under three acoustic conditions using the sound chimerism analysis, including (i) the original speech, (ii) the speech envelope and the sinusoidal modulation, and (iii) the fine structure of time and the modulation of the non-speech (white noise) sound envelope. We found that syllable perception mainly depended on the speech envelope, while tone perception depended on the temporal fine structure. The delta bands were prominent, and the parietal and prefrontal lobes were the main activated brain areas, regardless of whether syllable or tone perception was involved. Finally, we decoded the spatiotemporal features of Mandarin perception from the microstate sequence. The spatiotemporal feature sequence of the EEG caused by speech material was found to be specific, suggesting a new perspective for the subsequent auditory brain-computer interface. These results provided a new scheme for the coding strategy of new hearing aids for native Mandarin speakers.
近年来，语音感知研究受益于语音包络的低频节奏跟踪。然而，语音感知在语音包络和时间精细结构方面仍存在争议，特别是在普通话中。本研究旨在讨论普通话音节和声调感知对语音包络和时间精细结构的依赖。我们使用声音嵌合体分析在三种声学条件下记录了被试的脑电图（EEG），包括（i）原始语音，（ii）语音包络和正弦调制，以及（iii）时间精细结构和非语音（白噪声）声音包络的调制。我们发现，音节感知主要取决于语音包络，而声调感知取决于时间精细结构。 delta 频段明显，顶叶和前额叶是主要的激活脑区，无论涉及音节还是声调感知。最后，我们从微状态序列中解码了普通话感知的时空特征。发现由语音材料引起的 EEG 的时空特征序列是特定的，为后续的听觉脑机接口提供了新的视角。这些结果为本土普通话使用者的新型助听器的编码策略提供了一个新的方案。
