Causal contributions of the domain-general (Multiple Demand) and the language-selective brain networks to perceptual and semantic challenges in speech comprehension

• Published in: bioRxiv
• Main Authors: Macgregor, Lucy J, Gilbert, Rebecca A, Balewski, Zuzanna, Mitchell, Daniel J, Erzinclioglu, Sharon W, Rodd, Jennifer M, Duncan, John, Fedorenko, Evelina, Davis, Matthew H
• Format: Paper
• Language: English
• Published: Cold Spring Harbor Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press 12.04.2022
• Subjects: Aphasia; Language; Lesions; Speech; Speech perception
• DOI: 10.1101/2022.04.12.487989

Listening to spoken language engages domain-general Multiple Demand (MD, fronto-parietal) regions of the human brain, in addition to domain-selective (fronto-temporal) language regions, particularly when comprehension is challenging. However, there is limited evidence that the MD network makes a functional contribution to core aspects of comprehension. In a behavioural study of volunteers (n=19) with chronic brain lesions, but without aphasia, we assessed the causal role of these networks in perceiving, comprehending and adapting to challenging spoken sentences. A first task measured word report for acoustically degraded (noise-vocoded) sentences before and after training. Participants with greater damage to MD but not language regions required more vocoder channels to achieve 50% word report indicating impaired perception. Perception improved following training, reflecting adaptation to acoustic degradation, but perceptual learning was unrelated to lesion location or extent. A second task used sentence coherence judgements to measure the speed and accuracy of comprehension of spoken sentences using lower-frequency meanings of semantically ambiguous words. Comprehension accuracy was high and unaffected by lesion location or extent. The availability of the lower-frequency meaning, as measured in a subsequent word association task, increased following comprehension (word-meaning priming). Word-meaning priming was reduced for participants with greater damage to language but not MD regions. We conclude that language and MD networks make dissociable contributions to challenging speech comprehension: using recent experience to update word meaning preferences depends on language specialised regions, whereas the domain-general MD network plays a causal role in reporting words from degraded speech. Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.