Using a Parallel Pathway for Speech Perception

The first hint that things weren't proceeding as anticipated arrived quickly. The group analyzed the responses of diverse auditory regions to featr of pure tones and spoken words and sentences. They were able to confirm previous findings and fill in details of the map that had been missing. But they also observed something strange. Some areas of the superior temporal gyrus seemed to respond to the onset of speech just as quickly as the primary auditory cortex responded to simple sound characteristics like frequency.