Speech sound perception, neurophysiology, and plasticity.

An approach to understanding biological processes underlying speech perception, is to discover how speech sounds are represented in the central auditory system and to relate that representation to the perception of speech as a meaningful acoustic signal. Research from our group that pertains to the neurophysiologic representation of speech in the central pathways is reviewed here. Specifically considered is the relation between the representation of sound in the auditory pathway and the perception/misperception of speech, and neurophysiologic plasticity associated with speech-sound perceptual learning.