Neurobiology of Statistical Information Processing in the Auditory Domain

Although statistical information is crucial for language acquisition and online speech processing, experimental work has just begun identifying the neural mechanisms mediating these processes as well as their functional importance. We review these in the current chapter. Several core areas identified in this experimental work are regions of the supratemporal plane and lateral temporal cortex that appear to be sensitive to the degree of statistical regularity in an input and potentially initial word segmentation, and left inferior frontal regions that play a role in word recognition but may not be involved in the coding of statistics per se. The basal ganglia appear to have a role in online temporal predictions and anticipation, with a particularly important role for the putamen, a core part of the cortico-basal motor loop. Finally, although there is some evidence for functional and structural connectivity between frontal, temporal, and basal ganglia regions, future work is needed to examine the relation between statistical processing mechanisms and the strength of functional and structural connectivity within this network.