Tongue corticospinal modulation during attended verbal stimuli: Priming and coarticulation effects

► Motor system activation in speech perception contributes to phoneme discrimination. ► Phoneme expectation determines the motor preparation of the attended phoneme. ► A speech imagery-like process is active during phoneme expectation. ► Speech imagery abolished during listening of incongruent coarticulation cues. ► Motor system activation contributes also to speech perceptual restoration.