Decoding the time course of intonation planning in speech production
The temporal dynamics of intonation planning during speech production remain poorly understood.
Serial models of speech production propose that intonation is either integrated after word-form
encoding or planned earlier via an independent prosodic template. Recent parallel activation
accounts suggest that intonation may become available simultaneously with other linguistic
information. We used EEG and multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) to examine when intonation
becomes neurally detectable during speech planning. Thirty native Dutch speakers performed a
picture-naming task. The stimuli were disyllabic nouns varying orthogonally in semantic category
(animate vs. inanimate), manner of articulation of the first phoneme (fricative vs. plosive), lexical
stress (word-initial vs. word-final), and intonation (question vs. exclamation). Time-resolved
decoding identified when each linguistic dimension became decodable from EEG. The results
support serial accounts of speech production, with a progression from conceptual to phonetic
encoding. Lexical stress had a weak independent representation, yet modulated the temporal profile
of intonation decoding: above-chance decoding of intonation planning was earlier for words with
word-final stress compared to word-initial stress. This interaction suggests a prosodic template in
which intonation and stress are integrated and evolve together, and that is decodable from neural
patterns, as demonstrated here for the first time.
Publication type
PosterPublication date
2026
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