Human speech production encompasses multiple modes such as perceived, overt, whispered, and imagined, each reflecting distinct neural mechanisms. Among these, theta-band synchrony has been closely associated with language processing, attentional control, and inner speech. However, previous studies have largely focused on a single mode, such as overt speech, and have rarely conducted an integrated comparison of theta synchrony across different speech modes. In this study, we analyzed differences in theta-band neural synchrony across speech modes based on connectivity metrics, focusing on region-wise variations. The results revealed that overt and whispered speech exhibited broader and stronger frontotemporal synchrony, reflecting active motor-phonological coupling during overt articulation, whereas perceived speech showed dominant posterior and temporal synchrony patterns, consistent with auditory perception and comprehension processes. In contrast, imagined speech demonstrated a more spatially confined but internally coherent synchronization pattern, primarily involving frontal and supplementary motor regions. These findings indicate that the extent and spatial distribution of theta synchrony differ substantially across modes, with overt articulation engaging widespread cortical interactions, whispered speech showing intermediate engagement, and perception relying predominantly on temporoparietal networks. Therefore, this study aims to elucidate the differences in theta-band neural synchrony across various speech modes, thereby uncovering both the shared and distinct neural dynamics underlying language perception and imagined speech.

To localise the source of a sound, we use location-specific properties of the signals received at the two ears caused by the asymmetric filtering of the original sound by our head and pinnae, the head-related transfer functions (HRTFs). These HRTFs change throughout an organism's lifetime, during development for example, and so the required neural circuitry cannot be entirely hardwired. Since HRTFs are not directly accessible from perceptual experience, they can only be inferred from filtered sounds. We present a spiking neural network model of sound localisation based on extracting location-specific synchrony patterns, and a simple supervised algorithm to learn the mapping between synchrony patterns and locations from a set of example sounds, with no previous knowledge of HRTFs. After learning, our model was able to accurately localise new sounds in both azimuth and elevation, including the difficult task of distinguishing sounds coming from the front and back.

To localise the source of a sound, we use location-specific properties of the signals received at the two ears caused by the asymmetric filtering of the original sound by our head and pinnae, the head-related transfer functions (HRTFs). These HRTFs change throughout an organism's lifetime, during development for example, and so the required neural circuitry cannot be entirely hardwired. Since HRTFs are not directly accessible from perceptual experience, they can only be inferred from filtered sounds. We present a spiking neural network model of sound localisation based on extracting location-specific synchrony patterns, and a simple supervised algorithm to learn the mapping between synchrony patterns and locations from a set of example sounds, with no previous knowledge of HRTFs. After learning, our model was able to accurately localise new sounds in both azimuth and elevation, including the difficult task of distinguishing sounds coming from the front and back.

To localise the source of a sound, we use location-specific properties of the signals received at the two ears caused by the asymmetric filtering of the original sound by our head and pinnae, the head-related transfer functions (HRTFs). These HRTFs change throughout an organism's lifetime, during development for example, and so the required neural circuitry cannot be entirely hardwired. Since HRTFs are not directly accessible from perceptual experience, they can only be inferred from filtered sounds. We present a spiking neural network model of sound localisation based on extracting location-specific synchrony patterns, and a simple supervised algorithm to learn the mapping between synchrony patterns and locations from a set of example sounds, with no previous knowledge of HRTFs. After learning, our model was able to accurately localise new sounds in both azimuth and elevation, including the difficult task of distinguishing sounds coming from the front and back.