From phonemes to articulatory codes: an fMRI study of the role of Broca's area in speech production
Open accessAbstract
We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neuroanatomical substrates of phonetic encoding and the generation of articulatory codes from phonological representations. Our focus was on the role of the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) and in particular whether the LIFG plays a role in sublexical phonological processing such as syllabification or whether it is directly involved in phonetic encoding and the generation of articulatory codes. To answer this question, we contrasted the brain activation patterns elicited by pseudowords with high- or low-sublexical frequency components, which we expected would reveal areas related to the generation of articulatory codes but not areas related to phonological encoding. We found significant activation of a premotor network consisting of the dorsal precentral gyrus, the inferior frontal gyrus bilaterally, and the supplementary motor area for low- versus high-sublexical frequency pseudowords. Based on our hypothesis, we concluded that these areas and in particular the LIFG are involved in phonetic and not phonological encoding. We further discuss our findings with respect to the mechanisms of phonetic encoding and provide evidence in support of a functional segregation of the posterior part of Broca's area, the pars opercularis.
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Broca's area plays a role in normal speech production.
“We do not question the role that Broca’s area has been shown to play in normal speech production”
From Damage to Broca’s area does not contribute to long-term speech production outcome after stroke (2021) · cites this paper as Papoutsi et al., 2009
The ventral left pars opercularis has a role in articulatory recoding of speech.
“consistent with a role in articulatory recoding of speech (Papoutsi et al., 2009).”
From A review and synthesis of the first 20years of PET and fMRI studies of heard speech, spoken language and reading (2012) · cites this paper as Papoutsi et al., 2009
The left dorsal pars opercularis is associated with processing prior to articulatory recoding.
“The left dorsal pars opercularis was associated with processing prior to articulatory recoding (Papoutsi et al., 2009) and was found to be commonly activated by both the production and observation of nonsemantic, nonsyntactic, and nonsense syllables (Fridriksson et al., 2009).”
From A review and synthesis of the first 20years of PET and fMRI studies of heard speech, spoken language and reading (2012) · cites this paper as Papoutsi et al., 2009
The ventral left pars opercularis is activated during covert articulation.
“The ventral left pars opercularis was activated during covert articulation (Zheng et al., 2010; Papoutsi et al., 2009) with increased activation for phonological relative to semantic retrieval (Heim et al., 2009a), consistent with a role in articulatory recoding of speech (Papoutsi et al., 2009).”
From A review and synthesis of the first 20years of PET and fMRI studies of heard speech, spoken language and reading (2012) · cites this paper as Papoutsi et al., 2009
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“To date only one study (Papoutsi et al., 2009) used an experimental variable (biphone frequency) that convincingly disentangles syllabification from later phonetic and motor processing stages and confirmed a pattern predicted for syllabification in a subregion of Broca’s area.”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialNeural representations and mechanisms for the performance of simple speech sequences
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- Authors
- Papoutsi, M., de Zwart, J. A., Jansma, J. M., Pickering, M. J., Bednar, J. A., & Horwitz, B.
- Affiliations
- National Institutes of Health (US)
- University of Edinburgh (GB)
- Venue
- Cerebral Cortex
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2009-01-29
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 2156-2165
- ISSN
- 1047-3211 (ISSN-L)
- 1460-2199
- PMC
- PMC2722428
- OpenAlex
- W2132092497
- Cited by
- 190
- References
- 62
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 13 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 5.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Cerebral Cortex (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (Z99 DC999999)
- National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (Z01DC000057)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Phonetics and Phonology Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
- Keywords
- Broca's area, speech production, phonetic encoding, phonological representation, left inferior frontal gyrus, syllabification, supplementary motor area, pars opercularis, pseudowords, functional segregation
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Brain Mapping, Female, Frontal Lobe, Humans, Language, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Semantics, Speech
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