Decoding vowels and consonants in spoken and imagined words using electrocorticographic signals in humans
Open accessAbstract
Several stories in the popular media have speculated that it may be possible to infer from the brain which word a person is speaking or even thinking. While recent studies have demonstrated that brain signals can give detailed information about actual and imagined actions, such as different types of limb movements or spoken words, concrete experimental evidence for the possibility to 'read the mind', i.e. to interpret internally-generated speech, has been scarce. In this study, we found that it is possible to use signals recorded from the surface of the brain (electrocorticography) to discriminate the vowels and consonants embedded in spoken and in imagined words, and we defined the cortical areas that held the most information about discrimination of vowels and consonants. The results shed light on the distinct mechanisms associated with production of vowels and consonants, and could provide the basis for brain-based communication using imagined speech.
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When able speakers imagine speaking or hearing a word, neural activity in the STG can be used to decode those words with above-chance accuracy.
“Along these lines, when able speakers are instructed to imagine speaking or hearing a word, neural activity in the STG can be used to decode those words with above-chance accuracy59–63.”
From The speech neuroprosthesis (2024) · cites this paper as [60]
The Results (§3.1; page unavailable) report above-chance decoding of vowels and consonant pairs in imagined words, and §3.2 identifies temporal speech regions among the informative sites. The study did not demonstrate decoding whole words from STG activity, and its task was covert repetition of visually presented words, not a separate instruction to imagine hearing them. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredEarly speech BCI demonstrations have not yet achieved accuracies sufficiently high for communication of unconstrained sentences from a large vocabulary.
“Early demonstrations, although promising, have not yet achieved accuracies sufficiently high for communication of unconstrained sentences from a large vocabulary1–7.”
From A high-performance speech neuroprosthesis (2023) · cites this paper as [6]
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References 61 · Cited by 237
- Authors
- Pei, X., Barbour, D. L., Leuthardt, E. C., & Schalk, G.
- Affiliations
- New York State Department of Health (US)
- Washington University in St. Louis (US)
- Corresponding author
- Schalk, Gerwin
- Venue
- Journal of Neural Engineering
- Publisher
- IOP Publishing
- Published
- 2011-07-13
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 046028
- ISSN
- 1741-2552 (ISSN-L)
- 1741-2560
- PMC
- PMC3772685
- OpenAlex
- W2049363352
- Cited by
- 237
- References
- 61
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 20 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 16 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 9
- FWCI
- 6.49
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Neural Engineering (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (R01DC009215)
- National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (R01EB006356, EB000856, R01EB000856, EB006356)
- Army Research Office (W911NF-07-1-0415, W911NF-08-1, W911NF, W911NF-08-1-0216)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › EEG and Brain-Computer Interfaces
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Tactile and Sensory Interactions
- Keywords
- electrocorticography, imagined speech, vowels, consonants, speech perception, brain-computer interface, neural decoding, cortical regions, speech production
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Brain, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Communication Devices for People with Disabilities, Data Interpretation, Statistical, Discrimination, Psychological, Electrodes, Implanted, Electroencephalography, Epilepsy, Female, Humans, Functional Laterality, Male, Middle Aged, Movement, Speech Perception, User-Computer Interface
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