ArticlePloS one2020
Can we decode phonetic features in inner speech using surface electromyography?
Article in PloS one, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- Variability and methodological choices in articulatory suppression tasks: a review.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Towards an understanding of somatosensory perturbation on covert speech production: a functional near infrared spectroscopy study.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- Heart Talk: Emotional Inner Speech Increases Heart Rate.Psychophysiology · 2025Article
- Learning to operate an imagined speech Brain-Computer Interface involves the spatial and frequency tuning of neural activity.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Gamma and Theta/Alpha-Band Oscillations in the Electroencephalogram Distinguish the Content of Inner Speech.eNeuro · 2025Article
- Neural signals, machine learning, and the future of inner speech recognition.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Review
- Concepts, abstractness and inner speech.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Although having a long history of scrutiny in experimental psychology, it is still controversial whether wilful inner speech (covert speech) production is accompanied by specific activity in speech muscles. We present the results of a preregistered experiment looking at the electromyographic correlates of both overt speech and inner speech production of two phonetic classes of nonwords. An automatic classification approach was undertaken to discriminate between two articulatory features contained in nonwords uttered in both overt and covert speech. Although this approach led to reasonable accuracy rates during overt speech production, it failed to discriminate inner speech phonetic content based on surface electromyography signals. However, exploratory analyses conducted at the individual level revealed that it seemed possible to distinguish between rounded and spread nonwords covertly produced, in two participants. We discuss these results in relation to the existing literature and suggest alternative ways of testing the engagement of the speech motor system during wilful inner speech production.
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