This complex and poorly understood process is fluidly accomplished for a wide range of voices, accents, and speaking rates 1. Humans efficiently extract speech information from noisy acoustic signals and segment this into meaningful linguistic units. This work illuminates the fundamental acoustic infrastructure-both architecture and function-for spoken language, grounding cognitive models of speech perception and production in human neurobiology. Chronometric stimulation of Heschl’s gyrus selectively disrupts speech perception, while stimulation of planum temporale selectively disrupts speech production. The second, localized to planum temporale only in language-dominant cortex and indexed by high-gamma power, shows a transient response to acoustic stimuli that is uniquely suppressed during speech production.

The first, localized to bilateral Heschl’s gyri and indexed by low-frequency phase, predicts the timing of acoustic events. These reveal two predictive mechanisms in early auditory cortex with distinct anatomical and functional characteristics. We obtain intracranial recordings in 37 patients using depth probes implanted along the anteroposterior extent of the supratemporal plane during rhythm listening, speech perception, and speech production. Spoken language, both perception and production, is thought to be facilitated by an ensemble of predictive mechanisms.

Auditory cortex function