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Speech research has recently seen a good deal of activity surrounding forward models (Tian and Poeppel, 2012; Pickering and Garrod, 2013; Scott, 2013), expanding on a long tradition of work in preprogramming of speech motor plans (eg, Lashley, 1951; Keele, 1981; Klapp, 2003). Despite the volume of activity and interest in this area, few studies have offered insight into the detailed content of these forward plans. The content of such plans should presumably specify, at minimum, those aspects of speech that are essential in determining linguistic contrast, independent of the many aspects of a physical speech utterance that may be determined or altered through feedback mechanisms. Our previous work has attempted to uncover some of the detailed content of such forward plans using behavioral methods (Scott et al., 2013), while other studies have used neuroimaging methods (eg, Heinks-Maldonado et al., 2006). Both approaches have given suggestive results, though not without concerns regarding interpretation (Niziolek et al., 2013).

A novel experimental methodology employing startling auditory stimuli (SAS,> 120dB) has been used to demonstrate the execution of prepared non-speech motor behaviors (eg, head rotation and upper limb movements) with little or no interference from feedback regulation (Valls-Solé et al., 1999; Oude Nijhuis et al., 2007; Carlsen et al., 2012). Accelerated release of prepared movements (as short as 70ms for EMG response onset) in response to SAS has been termed the StartReact effect (Valls-Solé et al., 1999,