Abstract

We automatically and spontaneously imitate other people’s speech and other actions in daily interaction. An extensive neuroscience literature has demonstrated that observing people speak activates neural substrates associated with speech production, thus demonstrating the tight link between speech perception and production. We therefore automatically (and usually covertly) show an imitative response when observing other people’s speech. The link between a sensory stimulus and its associated response can be investigated using the Stimulus Response Compatibility (SRC) paradigm. It is assumed that the automatic imitative response upon action observation is due to overlapping representations between a stimulus and its associated response. This paradigm has been used in the last 20 years to study whether and how observed actions and their responses are linked to the action production system. In this talk, I will outline how we have applied the SRC paradigm to imitation of speech, with the ultimate aim of elucidating the conditions under which we imitate speech, as well as clarifying how speech production links to speech perception. I will discuss a series of behavioural studies using the SRC paradigm that investigated if we automatically imitate vowel stimuli, how presentation modality and emotional valence affect automatic imitation, and whether and how perception-production links for speech can be modified using training. 

About the speaker

Patti Adank, Department of Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences at UCL