The Involvement of the Cerebellum in Speech and Non-Speech Motor Timing Tasks

This study investigates the role of the cerebellum in the production of motor timing tasks by eight individuals with cerebellar lesions and a control group consisting of eight healthy participants. More specifically, it investigates the ability to reproduce metrical patterns by replicating speech and non-speech stimuli (respectively syllables and taps) arranged in different types of prosodic feet (anapests, trochees, etc.). The results show a clear difference in task accomplishment depending on stimulus type but not metrical pattern type. While there were no significant differences between patients and the control group in the repetition of metrical speech stimuli, the non-speech stimuli could not be repeated by patients to match the correct rate of the control group. This suggests that the tapping task involves cerebellar processes while the metrical speech task does not. Our data also reveal a large interspeaker variation within the patient group.