Event Abstract

Successful Self-Monitoring of Speech Errors Depends on Frontal White Matter Tracts

  • 1 Georgetown University, Department of Neurology, United States
  • 2 First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Department of Neurology, China
  • 3 MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital, Department of Neurology, United States

Objective: To uncover the neural structures necessary for successful error detection and correction. Background: The role of error detection and correction in aphasia recovery is poorly understood, although the utilization of error detection and correction has important implications for language therapy (Schwartz et al., 2016). Both production and comprehension therapeutic outcomes correlate positively with patients’ ability to detect errors in their own speech (Marshall et al., 1994), yet little is known about error detection itself. Some argue that people detect errors by hearing their own speech, either overtly or covertly, then realizing that what they said misfits what they intended to say (Levelt, 1983). Others argue that error detection occurs in parallel with speech production, and that detection is the result of conflict between several activated responses (Nozari et al., 2011). While the former hypothesis predicts that damage to areas associated with comprehension (i.e. temporal lobe) should correlate with poor error detection, the latter hypothesis predicts that error detection will be associated with damage to frontal brain structures that monitor conflict. The present study tests these hypotheses. Methods and Results: Using multivariate lesion symptom mapping, we investigated the neural structures necessary for successful error detection and correction in a sample of 35 people with chronic aphasia following left hemisphere stroke. We found that unsuccessful error detection and correction correlate with damage to frontal white matter tracts. Additionally, an inability to correct errors immediately was associated with damage to the superior temporal gyrus (STG) and angular gyrus. To identify which specific tracts are associated with self-monitoring, we then carried out a diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) analysis with the same set of participants. Controlling for lesion volume, we identified several left frontal hemispheric tracts where fractional anisotropy (FA) positively correlated with successful error detection. These include tracts that connect left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), pars opercularis to motor cortex, left supplementary motor areas (lSMA) to motor cortex, and left and right IFG, pars opercularis. Conclusion: Our finding that the integrity of white matter tracts in frontal areas predicts error detection performance suggests a domain-general, rather than language-specific, monitoring mechanism. This hypothesis is supported by ERP (Yeung et al., 2004; Riès et al., 2011; but see Acheson & Hagoort, 2014) and fMRI (Gauvin et al., 2015) studies, but this study demonstrates for the first time a relationship between error monitoring and white matter integrity. Put within the context of theories on self-monitoring, the results suggest that error detection relies on the interface between regions associated with domain-general conflict monitoring and speech production.

Figure 2

Acknowledgements

We thank Zainab Anbari, Maryam Ghaleh, Katherine Spiegel, and Harshini Pyata for contributing to data collection, and our participants for their involvement in the study.

References

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Levelt, W. J. M. (1983). Monitoring and self-repair in speech. Cognition, 14(1), 41–104. http://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(83)90026-4
Nozari, N., Dell, G. S., & Schwartz, M. F. (2011). Is comprehension necessary for error detection? A conflict-based account of monitoring in speech production. Cognitive Psychology, 63(1), 1–33. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2011.05.001
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Keywords: Aphasia, Self-Monitoring, lesion symptom mapping, Diffusion Tensor Imaging, conflict monitoring

Conference: Academy of Aphasia 55th Annual Meeting , Baltimore, United States, 5 Nov - 7 Nov, 2017.

Presentation Type: poster or oral

Topic: Consider for student award

Citation: Mandal AS, Skipper-Kallal LM, Xing S, Fama ME, Lacey E and Turkeltaub PE (2019). Successful Self-Monitoring of Speech Errors Depends on Frontal White Matter Tracts. Conference Abstract: Academy of Aphasia 55th Annual Meeting . doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2017.223.00020

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Received: 01 May 2017; Published Online: 25 Jan 2019.

* Correspondence: Mr. Ayan S Mandal, Georgetown University, Department of Neurology, Washington, DC, United States, ayanmandal.mdphd@gmail.com