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Poster A in Poster Session A: Tuesday, August 4, 9:30 – 11:15 am, Kimmel Center, Shorin & Rosenthal Rooms

Neural Indices of Language Processing are Enhanced during Interactive Conversation

Calli Smith¹, Aaron Nidiffer¹, Edmund Lalor¹, Elise A. Piazza¹; ¹University of Rochester

Presenter: Calli Smith

Language is inherently social. However, neuroimaging studies typically assess language processing and social interaction from different perspectives, either focusing on fine-grained, hierarchical responses to the speech stimulus, or coarse-grained interpersonal metrics like inter-subject correlation, respectively. Here, we combine these strategies to better understand how conversational interaction (vs. passive listening) impacts language processing and speaker-listener neural synchrony. We recorded EEG from 11 pairs of "interactors" having conversations and 11 respective "observers" listening to recorded pairs. Based on forward encoding models predicting EEG activity from the speech stimulus during listening, interactors tracked higher-level, semantic features of speech more strongly than observers, but we found no difference for lower-level acoustic features. Our current measures of neural synchrony show minimal differences by listener role, but ongoing analyses investigate additional metrics of synchrony and their relation to speech feature tracking.

Topic Area: Auditory, Speech & Language Processing