Converging evidence in support of common dynamical principles for speech and movement coordination

Abstract

We suggest that a principled analysis of language and action should begin with an understanding of the rate-dependent, dynamical processes that underlie their implementation. Here we present a summary of our ongoing speech production research, which reveals some striking similarities with other work on limb movements. Four design themes emerge for articulatory systems: 1) they are functionally rather than anatomically specific in the way they work; 2) they exhibit equifinality and in doing so fall under the generic category of a dynamical system called point attractor; 3) across transformations they preserve a relationally invariant topology; and 4) this, combined with their stable cyclic nature, suggests that they can function as nonlinear, limit cycle oscillators (periodic attractors). This brief inventory of regularities, though not mean to be inclusive, hints strongly that speech and other movements share a common, dynamical mode of operation.