The functional neuroanatomy of prelexical processing in speech perception Sophie K. Scott a,b, * , Richard J.S. Wise b a Departments of Psychology, and Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK b MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, Cyclotron Unit, Hammersmith Hospital, London W12 0NN, UK Received 12 October 2001; revised 11 July 2002; accepted 10 December 2002 Abstract In this paper we attempt to relate the prelexical processing of speech, with particular emphasis on functional neuroimaging studies, to the study of auditory perceptual systems by disciplines in the speech and hearing sciences. The elaboration of the sound-to-meaning pathways in the human brain enables their integration into models of the human language system and the definition of potential auditory processing differences between the two cerebral hemispheres. Further, it facilitates comparison with recent developments in the study of the anatomy of non-human primate auditory cortex, which has very precisely revealed architectonically distinct regions, connectivity, and functional specialization. q 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Primate auditory cortex; Speech perception; Superior temporal sulcus 1. Introduction ‘Prelexical processing’ is a term with different meanings, depending on the context: for example in linguistics it is used in models of generative grammar to distinguish between phrasal levels and lexical transformations. Prelexical processing, as defined in this paper, will address the neural basis of the acoustic processing of speech up to a ‘lexical-semantic’ level, by which we mean the recognition of explicit word forms and their meaning. This paper is thus expressly not outlining a model of the entire language system in the human 0022-2860/$ - see front matter q 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2002.12.002 Cognition 92 (2004) 13–45 www.elsevier.com/locate/COGNIT * Corresponding author. Department of Psychology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK. Tel.: þ44-20-7679-5342; fax: þ 44-20-7436-4276. E-mail addresses: sophie.scott@ucl.ac.uk (S.K. Scott); richard.wise@csc.mrc.ac.uk (R.J.S. Wise).