What does motor efference copy represent? Evidence from speech production
Open accessAbstract
How precisely does the brain predict the sensory consequences of our actions? Efference copy is thought to reflect the predicted sensation of self-produced motor acts, such as the auditory feedback heard while speaking. Here, we use magnetoencephalographic imaging (MEG-I) in human speakers to demonstrate that efference copy prediction does not track movement variability across repetitions of the same motor task. Specifically, spoken vowels were less accurately predicted when they were less similar to a speaker's median production, even though the prediction is thought to be based on the very motor commands that generate each vowel. Auditory cortical responses to less prototypical speech productions were less suppressed, resembling responses to speech errors, and were correlated with later corrective movement, suggesting that the suppression may be functionally significant for error correction. The failure of the motor system to accurately predict less prototypical speech productions suggests that the efferent-driven suppression does not reflect a sensory prediction, but a sensory goal.
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Niziolek et al. (2013) observed maximal sensory attenuation to prototypical vowel sounds but still observed significant non-zero sensory attenuation to atypical vowel sounds.
“The fact that while Niziolek et al., 2013 observed maximal levels of sensory attenuation to prototypical vowel sounds, they still observed significant (i.e., non-zero) levels of sensory attenuation to atypical vowel sounds is also consistent with this idea.”
From Neurophysiological evidence of efference copies to inner speech (2017) · cites this paper as Niziolek et al., 2013
The Results (page unavailable) report greater speech-induced suppression for central than peripheral vowel productions in the left hemisphere (p = 0.002), supporting the claim that suppression was strongest near the vowel center. The paper describes suppression in peripheral trials, but the passages do not report a test showing that peripheral suppression was significantly different from zero; the cited p-value tests the center–periphery difference. (LLM, conf=0.85)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredNiziolek et al. (2013) found that the degree of sensory attenuation in overt speech production was stronger when participants produced vowel sounds closer to their median production than when they produced less typical vowel sounds.
“a recent study by Niziolek, Nararajan and Houde (Niziolek et al., 2013) on sensory attenuation in the context of overt speech production found that the degree of sensory attenuation was stronger when participants produced vowel sounds that were closer (in terms of their acoustic properties) to their median production of these sounds, compared to when they produced vowel sounds that were, for them,”
From Neurophysiological evidence of efference copies to inner speech (2017) · cites this paper as Niziolek et al., 2013
The present study's observation of N1-suppression in the Match condition but not the Mismatch condition is consistent with the Niziolek et al. (2013) account, because the formant-space distance between an inner /ba/ and an audible /BA/ is smaller than between an inner /bi/ and an audible /BA/.
“The fact that the present study observed N1-suppression in the Match condition but not the Mismatch condition is nevertheless consistent with the Niziolek et al., 2013 account, in that the distance, in formant space, between an inner /ba/ and an audible /BA/ would be smaller than the distance between an inner /bi/ and an audible /BA/, even though the inner phoneme did not match the audible phoneme”
From Neurophysiological evidence of efference copies to inner speech (2017) · cites this paper as Niziolek et al., 2013
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- Authors
- Niziolek, C. A., Nagarajan, S. S., & Houde, J. F.
- Affiliations
- University of California, San Francisco (US)
- Venue
- The Journal of Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Society for Neuroscience
- Published
- 2013-10-09
- Volume
- 33
- Issue
- 41
- Pages
- 16110-16116
- ISSN
- 0270-6474 (ISSN-L)
- 1529-2401
- PMC
- PMC3792453
- OpenAlex
- W2028563590
- Cited by
- 222
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 27 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 16 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 31 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 6.03
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (0926196)
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (F32DC011249, R01DC010145, R01DC013979, R01DC004855, T32DC000038)
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R21NS076171)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Motor Control and Adaptation
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Keywords
- sensory prediction, speech production, auditory feedback, movement variability, vowel production, auditory cortex, error correction, motor control
- MeSH terms
- Brain, Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Female, Humans, Male, Speech, Speech Perception, Magnetoencephalography
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