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Experimental paradigm for measuring metacognitive awareness of errors in self-produced speech
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Poster D56 in Poster Session D, Wednesday, October 25, 4:45 - 6:30 pm CEST, Espace Vieux-Port
This poster is part of the Sandbox Series.
Viivi Kanerva1, Rita Heikkilä1, Liinu Paajanen1, Emilia Soini1, Henry Railo1; 1University of Turku
Continuous monitoring of speech auditory feedback is integral to fluent and accurate speech production. Neural control systems compare internal representations of intended speech to actual speech output and, upon mismatch detection, modify speech to compensate for the discrepancy. These control systems are often assumed to function automatically, but for example, when one is learning to pronounce foreign phonemes or trying to compensate for a speech impairment, auditory feedback needs to be consciously evaluated. Metacognition is the process that enables individuals to evaluate their performance in different tasks; in this case how well one’s speech matches the intended target. How individuals differ in their ability to metacognitively assess errors in auditory feedback, and whether this predicts how they adjust their speech in response to these errors, has not been studied. We are developing and testing a psychophysical experimental paradigm to measure an individual’s ability to detect and metacognitively assess errors in self-produced speech. We utilize the widely used altered auditory feedback paradigm where speech motor control is studied by perturbing auditory feedback with artificial errors resulting in a perceived mismatch between intended and perceived speech. Our paradigm consists of a two-interval forced-choice (2IFC) task where participants produce sustained vocalizations of the vowel /u/ for 4 s at a time while their voice is fed back to them in real time through headphones. During each vocalization, the pitch (fundamental frequency, F0) of the auditory feedback is shifted upward for 200 ms during one of two intervals (A or B) displayed on a screen in front of the participants. After each vocalization, the participants evaluate whether the pitch-shift was during interval A or B (perceptual discrimination) and, in addition, report how confident they are in their answer (metacognitive judgement). Pitch-shift magnitudes are individually calibrated for each participant to achieve a constant discrimination accuracy, as task performance affects metacognitive performance. All participants take part in two identical test sessions approximately one week apart. Data collection is ongoing with data of 60 healthy adult participants collected so far. We will use signal detection theory to estimate participants’ discrimination sensitivity (d′) and metacognitive ability (meta-d′ and Mratio) to detect the pitch-shifts in their auditory feedback. We will examine whether individual differences in discrimination and metacognitive ability predict how participants adjust their vocalization after the pitch-shift. We will look at the latency, magnitude and direction (i.e., opposing/following) of these vocal responses. We will also calculate the test-retest reliability of the paradigm. In future, we will use this paradigm to evaluate differences in perception and metacognition of self-produced speech between healthy adults and people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) to gain a better understanding of the speech deficits associated with PD.
Topic Areas: Speech Motor Control, Multisensory or Sensorimotor Integration