Oscillatory brain indexes of auditory-induced predictions about contingences during vocalizations.

Abstract

During speech and voice production, our brain implicitly generates internal predictions about future events in auditory environment that empirically can affect voice production. Bioelectrical signatures of these prediction-related neuronal calculations can help us to understand normal and clinical aspects of predictive processing when motor system and audition are functionally integrated for phonation. Using time frequency-analyses of brain activity elicited by surprising shift in auditory feedback during human vocalizations, we identified changes in oscillatory brain activity that are associated with long-term brain predictions about future contingences in voice production. Furthermore, we found that when the auditory system detects an error in relatively long-term brain predictions, changes in oscillatory brain activity occur before the onset of involuntary compensatory vocal reactions in voice production. Interpreting our present results from predictive processing perspectives opens an avenue for further basic and clinical research of a relatively complex hierarchically organized predictions incorporating motor and perceptual functions.