Skip Navigation



Cerebral Cortex Advance Access published online on July 10, 2006
Cerebral Cortex, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhl028
This Article
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
17/5/1173    most recent
bhl028v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Möller, J.
Right arrow Articles by Münte, T. F.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Möller, J.
Right arrow Articles by Münte, T. F.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Article

What the Brain Does before the Tongue Slips

Jürn Möller 1, Bernadette M. Jansma 2, Antoni Rodriguez-Fornells 3, and Thomas F. Münte 1 *

1 Department of Neuropsychology, Otto von Guericke University, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany
2 Faculty of Psychology, Department of Neurocognition, University of Maastricht, The Netherlands
3 Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats and Faculty of Psychology, University of Barcelona, 08035 Barcelona, Spain

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Thomas F. Münte, E-mail: thomas.muente{at}med.uni-magdeburg.de


  Abstract

Speech production is an extremely rapid and seemingly effortless process with speech errors in normal subjects being rare. Although psycholinguistic models incorporate elaborate monitoring mechanisms to prevent and correct errors, the brain regions involved in their commitment, detection, and correction have remained elusive. Using event-related brain potentials in a task known to elicit spoonerisms representing a special class of sound errors, we show specific brain activity prior to the vocalization of such spoonerisms. Source modeling localized this activity to the supplementary motor area in medial frontal cortex. We propose that this activity reflects the simultaneous activation of 2 competing speech plans on processing levels related to the construction of a rather "phonetic" speech plan contrasting with the traditional view, assuming the substitution of abstract phonological representations as the main source for sound errors.

Keywords: brain potentials; slips of the tongue; speech errors; speech production; supplementary motor area.
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Cereb CortexHome page
M. H. Ruiz, H.-C. Jabusch, and E. Altenmuller
Detecting Wrong Notes in Advance: Neuronal Correlates of Error Monitoring in Pianists
Cereb Cortex, November 1, 2009; 19(11): 2625 - 2639.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.