Integrating perception and production in a neural network model

摘要

We present a neural network model that integrates between motor commands and their associated perceived sounds in speech production. The model is based on simple, neurobiologically plausible mechanisms. In modelling the development of vowels in an infant's babbling phase, perceptual and action prototypes develop concurrently. When the model is exposed to "external" vowels, the perceptual prototypes develop to coincide with the external sounds, leading to language-specific categorical perception. The model develops motor mirror neurons that are activated when their associated sounds are perceived, and it learns to imitate vowels based on its own production of these vowels. We suggest an extension of the model to account for visual mirror neurons.