Language Sciences Colloquium – Parrell

From language to action: mechanisms of speech motor control

Ben Parrell

University of Wisconsin – Madison, Dept. of Communication Sciences & Disorders

How do we produce the tightly controlled movements of speech? I will present a new model of speech motor control (FACTS, of Feedback Aware Control of Tasks in Speech) that suggests we can understand speech production as a hierarchical state feedback control system, with parallels to movement control in other motor domains. I will show how the model can replicate many important characteristics of human speech motor control, as well as some novel hypotheses made by the model.