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Background. The article discusses various approaches to describing the processes of sound pronunciation. Works in the field of neuroscience and speech therapy provide comprehensive descriptions of sound pronunciation. However, they are rarely combined in a multidisciplinary approach to address issues of sound production and correction. Objective. The article seeks to describe interdisciplinary approaches to the problem of sound pronunciation, as well as to present examples of integrative approaches to the correction of sound pronunciation. Results. The paper analyzes various models of sound pronunciation, developed in Russia and abroad. The concepts of phoneme and kinakeme, the processes of syllable fusion are considered. The article presents examples of research and the theory of constructing the articulatory basis of speech activity, provides examples of neurocognitive technologies applied in correcting sound pronunciation. Conclusion. The paper describes the role of modern network models in describing sound production. On the basis of the analysis, psychophysiological and logopedic characteristics of sound production were presented. Examples of modern neurocognitive technologies to correct pronunciation in the work with speech disorders are presented.

The contradiction between the conscious and emotional assessment of situations often arises when there is a discrepancy between reality and ideal view. The purpose of this study is to identify a system of remotely diagnosed parameters (by video recording using Skype tools), which can objectively indicate the presence of a cognitive-emotional conflict during a dialogue. The current study has become particularly relevant in the COVID-19 environment, where face-to-face communication is limited, and all interactions must occur in a remote online format. In such an environment, the identification of formal signs indicating latent conflicts in online interactions comes to the fore. To stimulate an outburst and fix the cognitive-emotional conflict remotely, various schemes were used: interviews based on the self-attitude technique, discussions based on the transactional analysis model, free reasoning about situations that were selected by the age, and other parameters of participants, as well as watching video clips with an unexpected end. For automatic marking of people's emotional reactions in video data, a computer program was developed using neural network algorithms based on VGG16. Furthermore, the neural network for emotion recognition was pretrained based on open sources by the P. Ekman FACS model. Finally, video recordings were marked according to the expert assessment results regarding the presence of cognitive-emotional conflict. We conducted 27 interviews with the participation of both genders, including ten high school students (from 12 to 17 years old), a total of 338,075 frames were received. As a result, it was found that the two facial expression parameters identified by the program reliably distinguish the presence of a cognitive-emotional conflict. Furthermore, in all the studied schemes of telecommunication dialogue, the «happy» parameter was significantly more pronounced in a situation of conflict.

This study is part of a large interdisciplinary project to create objective criteria for building a classification system for a polymorphic schizophrenic disease characterized by disorders of thinking and perception. Within the framework of the project, for the first time in patients with schizophrenia with hallucinatory-delusional syndrome, neuropsychological testing, complete structural (morphometry and tractography) and functional MRI studies involving a detailed clinical study, determination of the patient’s immunological and genetic status are simultaneously performed. On the basis of a comprehensive analysis of MRI data, it is planned to determine the key architecture of the neural networks of the brain producing the disease, to assess the success of disease therapy and to determine the targets of subsequent therapy based on the application of the method of transcranial magnetic stimulation. This paper presents the primary results of work on the study of the difference between the structural connectomes of schizophrenic patients and the norm. The work is of a search and preliminary nature. As a result of the work, the possibility of classifying the disease was shown and the key structural links for it were identified.

Aim. To study the characteristics of bioelectric activity of the brain in patients with vulvar lichen sclerosus (VLS), as well as the interaction between certain structures of the brain and their relationship with the manifestations of VLS. Materials and methods. 102 patients aged 21 to 78 years (average age 50.5713.92 years) were questioned about the VLS symptoms, the quality of sleep and presence of phobias, of which 30 patients aged 21 to 72 years (average age 46.0715.42 years) after signing informed consent underwent electroencephalographic (EEG) study. Inclusion criteria were patients aged 18 and older, vulvar lichen sclerosus in the acute stage, confirmed by histological examination. Results. The common complaint was itching in external genitalia (73.3%), which was statistically evident in the analysis of brain activity. Itching of external genitalia in patients with VLS could account for systemic changes in the activity and interactions of such structures as the brain stem and globus pallidus, ventral striatum, islet, parietal cortex, field 40 according to Broadman (supramarginal gyrus), as well as areas of the primary visual cortex (field 17 according to Broadman). Conclusion. VLS is often accompanied by itching in the external genitalia (73.3%), and has an average score of 5.6 on a ten-point scale. EEG is recommended with a disease duration of more than 6 years and an itch level of 56 points or more. The main feature of brain bioelectric activity in patients with VLS is evident signs of organic brain damage. The disease is accompanied by impairment of the visceral regulatory mechanisms of the brain, which leads to the formation of a low-complementary viscerom and neurodegenerative signs in the EEG. A frequent combination of disorders in the central nervous system and immune system gives reason to consider VLS associated with chronic fatigue syndrome.

There was conducted an experimental comparison of the objective (FaceReader 4.0) and subjective assessment of the severity of emotions on different scales. As objects, 18 short (no more than 2 s) videos were used, on which the same person (actress) expressed the given emotions by pronouncing the word “Yes”. These stimuli were selected based on previously conducted subjective scaling experiments. We used (1) a direct subjective quantitative assessment of each video clip separately for each of the parameters selected in the FaceReader 4.0 program (neutral, happy, angry, disgust, fear, sad, surprise) – the severity of the corresponding emotion was evaluated in points; (2) a direct subjective assessment of each video clip for each of the parameters allocated in the 4-dimensional spherical model of emotions (bad – good; confidence – surprise; attraction; defensive reaction: fear – aggression); (3) the methodology of the Semantic Differential Scaling (SD) by C. Osgood; (4) the PXLab Self-Assessment-Manikin Scales. As a result, the relationship of all the scales used was investigated and it was shown that the objective qualification of emotions (using the FaceReader 4.0 program) does not coincide with the results of subjective assessment of the same samples.

In this article, the process of internal pronunciation (covert speech) is associated with the internal speech through an intellectual process such as silent reading. The objective of the research is to compare the EP of visual and auditory perception and internal pronunciation of phonemes and syllables; to classify phonemes, words and syllables from covert speech, according to the EEG-data. Electrical activity was measured in tasks: for visual and auditory perception and pronunciation; for perception and pronunciation of conditioned stimuli. Electrophysiological experiment registrated using 19-channel EEG. Seven phonemes (A, B, F, G, M, R, U) and ten syllables composed of these phonemes (BA, FA, GA, MA, RA, BU, RU, MU, FU, GU) were selected for the experiment. Japanese words constructed using current phonemes were used as conditional stimuli (a trigger for the stimulus's pronunciation). The obtained data analysis was carried out using the statistical programming language R. Results, based on the ANOVA have significant differences for all experimental stages. Pronunciation as a reaction to a conditioned stimulus in the form of Japanese words were compared with two types of of covert speech initialization. The averaged reconstruction was between 63–67% (group averaging). In pairwise classifications of Japanese phonemes, stimuli reconstruction was between 76% and 83%. There is also a significant difference between the pronunciation and initialization type, regardless of the stimulus type (p < 0.001), but changes across channels are significant only for phonemes (p = 0.03). Main significant differences (p < 0.05) were found on C3 and F3 (for audio feed the differences are also seen on channel F7) in the early EP latencies (temporal zone).

Significant differences were found in the bioelectric responses of the brain to words with the same meaning in Russian and Japanese in different series in the electrophysiological experiment on a sample of 18 people. Two groups were used: those who knew Japanese and Russian, and those who knew only Russian as their native language. Differences in mutual articulation of these words were found due to differences in evoked potentials of the late latency (300–500 MS) in the frontal, central and parietal leads, and also in the earlier - 200 MS - latencies in the central, temporal and frontal leads). When comparing between groups (knows Japanese or does not know), differences in the components of EP 200 and P300 were obtained by speaking in Russian, however, there is no difference in primary and semantic processing (P100, N400). The main significant differences over the channels C3, F3, P3 given in this chapter are the amplitude and latency of latency in N200, as well as the decrease in amplitude N400. These data are correlated with earlier studies.

Empathy is the ability to recognize, understand, and share the feelings of another person, including the perception of another person. Empathy promotes prosocial or helping behavior that comes from within, rather than under duress.

Prosocial behavior is progressively being studied because of its enormous role in the changing conditions of the modern world. We study the prosocial behavior by analyzing the brain features mechanisms during the custom setting - empathy game “Stone-Paper-Scissors”. Observed results for the cohort of 55 participants (28 women and 27 men) were obtained from the test questionnaires and EEG. Our approach relates to the field of medicine and neuroscience, in particular, to a method for studying the activity of individual brain structures predefined by their spatial position according to the scalp multichannel EEG. The results of the questionnaires were tabulated and processed by the factor analysis. Six factors were identified that accounted for 41.45% of the total variance of the data. The factors received the following interpretation: “Altruistic”, “Publicity”, “Emergency prosocial behavior”, “Conformist prosocial behavior”, “Anonymous prosocial behavior”, “Emotional prosocial behavior”. Comparison by Student’s T-test showed a significant (p < 0.05) difference between men and women in the “Publicity” factor and in the “Emotional prosocial behavior” factor (females are more emotional than males).

The internal speech recognition is a promising technology, which could find its use in brain-computer interfaces development and greatly help those who suffer from neurodegenerative diseases. The research in this area is in its early stages and is associated with practical value, which makes it relevant. It is known that internal pronunciation can be restored according to electroencephalogram data because it allows one to register specific activity associated with this process. The purpose of this work is to build and implement an algorithm for extracting features and classifying Russian phonemes according to an electroencephalogram recorded during the internal pronunciation of the phonemes. This kind of research is actively conducted abroad; however, there is no information about such works for the Russian language phonemes in open sources at the moment. In the course of the work, an algorithm for extracting features and classifying the internal pronunciation of Russian phonemes was built and tested, the accuracy of which showed results comparable with other studies.

This research aims to study the features of the brain mechanisms of predicting words based on the previous context, including emotional context. Based on the results of an experiment conducted on 21 people (aged 18 to 32 years, 14 male and 7 female respondents), it can be concluded that the emotional context can accelerate the “decision-making” about the meaning of the stimulus and whether it is suitable for the context. Significant differences between stimuli in different conditions of presentation arose in the later components (about 400 ms after stimulus), which suggests that these differences really reflect differences in meaning of the stimuli, instead of their visual component.

An experimental construction of the subjective (emotional) space of perception of musical sound fragments used in the GarageBand app for iOS to help the composer has been carried out. A representative set of 20 sound fragments was selected on the basis of an experiment on the classification of all samples from this database, which were further evaluated in 3 types of experiments: on the basis of multidimensional scaling of differences between them, on the basis of direct scaling of emotional qualities (Semantic Differential Method for 25 adjective pairs), based on direct scaling on three SAM scales (in the PXLab variant). As a result, the individual features (points of view) of these sound samples were investigated and a correlation comparison of the obtained results was carried out. As a result, the interrelation of all used scales is shown and a way of their integration into a four- dimensional spherical model of emotions is presented.

Significant differences were found in the organization of electrobiological responses of the brain to the words-homonyms, presented in different meanings by priming a certain context in the electrophysiological experiment on a sample of 14 people As a result of comparison of series before and after negative reinforcement by the method of Semantic Radical of the word entering the semantic field of one of the two studied meanings of the word-homonym, the fact of indirect long-term influence of the emotional component is revealed. This is manifested not only in the change in the meaning of the homonym word (presented in the relevant context) in the late latency (300–500 MS) in the frontal leads, but also in the reconfiguration of its meaning in a non-relevant context (in the earlier – 200 MS – latencies in the central leads). Thus, the results objectively indicate the possibility of two types of reconfiguration of the semantic map (space) (1) operational reconfiguration to the current context defined in this experiment by the corresponding prime, and (2) long-term reconfiguration determined by the control action.

С помощью формальных объективных методов анализа обнаружено принципиальное сходство звуковых сигналов обезьян разных видов: шимпанзе, макакрезусов, павианов, сиамангов (гиббонов) с проявлениями эмоций в речи человека. Показано, что разработанная (на основе принципа относительного микроамплитудного кроссчастотного кодирования) система формальных параметров оценки эмоций в речи человека хорошо применима в качестве экспериментальной процедуры для объективной оценки и интерпретации (в соответствии с системой человеческих эмоций) звуковых сигналов обезьян. Это подтверждается обнаруженным соответствием формальных оценок с результатами наблюдений за поведением животных в разных ситуациях. Предложенный антропоморфный метод анализа звуковых сигналов животных базируется на четырехмерной сферической модели эмоций человека и принципах кодирования информации в нервной системе. Предлагаемая модель может служить общей классификационной системой для эмоциональных явлений, объединяя физиологические представления о мозговых механизмах эмоциональной регуляции и известные психологические классификации, полученные на основе разных экспериментальных данных. Она количественно объясняет также все возможные нюансы и плавные взаимопереходы эмоций, представляя каждую конкретную эмоцию как линейную комбинацию выделенных основных психофизиологических параметров. Хорошее согласие параметров речевого сигнала не только человека, но и обезьян с параметрами психофизиологической модели эмоций подтверждает теоретические представления о принципах кодирования информации в нервной системе и продуктивности предлагаемого антропоморфного подхода к разработке технических систем, в частности, к методам обработки речевого сигнала. С другой стороны, обнаруженное совпадение подтверждает и выделенные ранее параметры психофизиологической модели, дополнительно обосновывая предпочтительность (по сравнению с другими, известными в литературе) именно такой системы классификации эмоций, как с точки зрения размерности, так и в отношении ориентации осей пространства модели. В целом, полученные результаты свидетельствуют о древности эмоциональной системы регуляции и о том, что она сохранилась у человека в неприкосновенности, продолжая сосуществовать в качестве системы выражения чувств, параллельно с возникшей независимо звуковой системой членораздельной речи. Кроме того показано, что у большинства обследованных видов обезьян (шимпанзе, макакарезус и павиан) весь репертуар звуковых сигналов исчерпывается этой эмоциональной регуляцией. Однако обнаружено, что некоторые виды обезьян – сиаманги (гиббоны) способны усложнять репертуар своих звуковых сигналов и создавать дополнительные каналы звуковой сигнализации в относительно свободной частотной области, чтобы не мешать использованию общей с другими видами обезьян (и человека) эмоциональной системы сигнализации. По-видимому, эта дополнительная система изменения звукового сигнала основана на том же принципе кодирования, что и общая эмоциональная. Ключевые слова: эмоции, обезьяны, речевой сигнал, антропоморфный метод.

A comprehensive interdisciplinary study of the cerebral mechanisms of readiness for speech was performed based on a complete neuropsychological examination according to A.R. Luria with qualification and quantification of the detected symptoms and electrophysiological data by an original method of recording and localization of the potentials synchronized with the preparation for speaking. The data on stutterers were compared with those on normal subjects and showed that stuttering is not an isolated (purely peripheral) speech disorder but is a component of a syndrome consisting of specific mnestic, neurodynamic, and motor defects that reflect dysfunction of postfrontal and median structures of the brain (functional blocks I and III according to Luria). Differences between normal and stuttering subjects in the potential related to readiness for speech were associated with the activity of deep median structures (the pons and brainstem), right subcortical nuclei, the right frontal cortex, and the left mediotemporal cortex.

Currently rapid development of functional activity researches of human brain sets the problem of reliable and non-invasive detection of mental processes and states. At present we know some traditional methods of rapid and contactless acquisition of brain activity characteristics, such as functional tomography (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography. But these methods have low temporal resolution, complicated and ambiguous association of measured values with information processes in brain. So possibility of MIT application is investigated. Estimation of possibility of such changes registration is performed. Investigations of magnetic field configuration, schematics of transmit-receive modules and numerical algorithms are in progress. It may allow us to register high speed conductivity changes in brain tissues.