Speaker: David Gow
Date/Time: Thursday, Feb 21, 5:30pm
Location: 32-D831
Title: Imaging interaction: Using Granger causality analysis of MRI-constrained MEG/EEG to understand the dynamic processes that support speech perception and enforce phonotactic constraints
Abstract:
Traditional behavioral techniques and BOLD imaging provide important tools for identifying the components of linguistic and cognitive processes, but are severely limited in their ability to support strong inferences about the dynamic interactions between those components. In this presentation we will present an alternate approach that uses well-established statistical methods rooted in simple intuitions about causality to track the evolving interactions between different brain regions during the perception of spoken language based on high spatiotemporal resolution reconstructions of cortical activity. We will discuss applications of this technique to exploring the role of top-down lexical influences on speech perception and the role they play in producing and enforcing phonotactic regularity.