Coupled neural systems underlie the production and comprehension of naturalistic narrative speech.

Neuroimaging studies of language have typically focused on either production or comprehension of single speech utterances such as syllables, words, or sentences. In this study we used a new approach to functional MRI acquisition and analysis to characterize the neural responses during production and comprehension of complex real-life speech. First, using a time-warp based intrasubject correlation method, we identified all areas that are reliably activated in the brains of speakers telling a 15-min-long narrative.

On the same wavelength: predictable language enhances speaker-listener brain-to-brain synchrony in posterior superior temporal gyrus.

Recent research has shown that the degree to which speakers and listeners exhibit similar brain activity patterns during human linguistic interaction is correlated with communicative success. Here, we used an intersubject correlation approach in fMRI to test the hypothesis that a listener's ability to predict a speaker's utterance increases such neural coupling between speakers and listeners. Nine subjects listened to recordings of a speaker describing visual scenes that varied in the degree to which they permitted specific linguistic predictions.

Slow cortical dynamics and the accumulation of information over long timescales.

Making sense of the world requires us to process information over multiple timescales. We sought to identify brain regions that accumulate information over short and long timescales and to characterize the distinguishing features of their dynamics. We recorded electrocorticographic (ECoG) signals from individuals watching intact and scrambled movies.

Topographic mapping of a hierarchy of temporal receptive windows using a narrated story.

Real-life activities, such as watching a movie or engaging in conversation, unfold over many minutes. In the course of such activities, the brain has to integrate information over multiple time scales. We recently proposed that the brain uses similar strategies for integrating information across space and over time.

Speaker-listener neural coupling underlies successful communication.

Verbal communication is a joint activity; however, speech production and comprehension have primarily been analyzed as independent processes within the boundaries of individual brains. Here, we applied fMRI to record brain activity from both speakers and listeners during natural verbal communication. We used the speaker's spatiotemporal brain activity to model listeners' brain activity and found that the speaker's activity is spatially and temporally coupled with the listener's activity.