Zeitschrift für Sprachpathologie und Therapie

Abstrakt

Rhythm Structure Influences Auditory-Motor Interaction During Anticipatory Listening to Simple Singing

Jungblut Monika, Huber Walter and Schnitker Ralph

Purpose: Our objective was to investigate if auditory-motor interactions during anticipatory listening to simple singing also vary depending on rhythm structure as we recently demonstrated for singing production.

Methods: In an event-related fMRI procedure 28 healthy subjects listened to vowel changes with regular groupings (1), regular groupings with rests (2), and irregular groupings (3) in anticipation of repeating the heard stimuli during the latter portion of the experiment.

Results: While subtraction (2) minus (1) yielded activation in the left precentral gyrus, both subtractions from condition (3), resulted in activation of bilateral putamen and caudate.
Only subtraction (3) minus (1) yielded activation of bilateral pre-SMA, and precentral gyrus more distinct in the left hemisphere. Middle, superior, and transverse temporal gyri as well as ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and the insula were activated most pronouncedly in the left hemisphere.

Conclusions: The higher the requirement of temporal grouping, the more necessary auditory-motor fine tuning might be resulting in a more distinct and left lateralized temporal, premotor, and prefrontal activation.

If it were possible to support programming and planning of articulatory gestures by anticipatory listening to specifically targeted vocal exercises, this could be beneficial for patients suffering from motor speech disorders as well as aphasia as our current research with patients substantiates.