Cerebral mechanisms of prosodic integration: evidence from connected speech.
NeuroImage. 2005-02-01; 24(4): 937-947
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.11.003
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Hesling I(1), Clément S, Bordessoules M, Allard M.
Author information:
(1)Laboratoire d’Imagerie Moléculaire et Fonctionnelle ERT CNRS, 146 rue Léo
Saignat, case 117, 33 076, Université Victor Ségalen, Bordeaux 2, France.
Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and long connected speech
stimuli, we addressed the question of neuronal networks involved in prosodic
integration by comparing (1) differences in brain activity when hearing
connected speech stimuli with high and low degrees of prosodic expression; (2)
differences in brain activity in two different diotic listening conditions
(normal speech delivery to both ears, i.e., NN; and low-pass-filtered speech
delivery to both ears, i.e., FF); and (3) effects of high and low degrees of
prosodic information in the NN and FF conditions. Twelve right-handed French men
listened passively to the stimuli. Each stimulus induced a specific cerebral
network, the flat one weakening activations, which were mainly reduced to the
bilateral STG for both listening conditions. High degrees of prosodic
information were found to trigger right specific activations in a wider neuronal
network involved in speech integration (such as BA44, BA21-22 and BA39-40) than
low degrees of prosodic information did. More precisely, the right BA44 was
found to be specifically involved in the process of F(0) modulations, which are
the main acoustic correlate of prosody. Not only do the results achieved in the
present experiment using 30-s-long connected speech stimuli show the involvement
of a bilateral neuronal network but they also strongly suggest that high degrees
of prosodic information elicit activations in a wider neuronal network involved
in speech perception than low degrees of prosodic information do.
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.11.003
PMID: 15670670 [Indexed for MEDLINE]