LE3 .A278 2022

2022

Lametti, Daniel

Acadia University

Bachelor of Science

Honours

Psychology

Psychology

This study examined the relationship between languages in the bilingual brain and the physical production of speech. The nature of language representations in the bilingual brain has been a decades-long debate, with some arguing for shared neural representations and others arguing for independent neural representations. The present study aims to provide further insight into this topic by investigating whether bilingualism enables individuals to acquire language-specific sensorimotor maps for speech production. To test this idea, a sensorimotor adaptation paradigm was used in which feedback of speech was altered in real-time to elicit sensorimotor learning. Thirty English-French bilinguals were assigned to one of two groups in a mixed design with Language (English, French) as the within-subjects variable and Group (1, 2) as the between-subjects variable. Following a period of unaltered speech, formants (vowel sound fundamental frequencies) were altered such that the vowel sounds participants heard themselves producing in English were in a different region of the vowel space (area defining different vowels in space based on the frequencies of their first and second formants) compared to the same vowel sounds produced in French. Speech compensation in response to altered feedback was calculated and aftereffects associated with compensation were examined as the main variables of interest. It was demonstrated that, for the same vowel sounds, bilinguals were able to acquire and maintain two distinct sensorimotor speech patterns of equal magnitude but opposite direction: one in French and one in English. Additionally, significant aftereffects following the removal of manipulation were observed. These results provide evidence for the presence of language-specific and dissociable sensorimotor maps for speech in the bilingual brain.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:3772