Decoding paralinguistic signals: Effect of semantic and prosodic cues on aphasics' comprehension
Abstract
A matching task between sentences voiced with joyful, angry, or sad intonation and pictures of facial expressions representing the same emotions is proposed to 27 aphasics and 20 normal subjects. Semantic contents are either meaningless, neutral, or affectively loaded. In the affective-meaning condition, content is redundant with prosody or conflicting with it. Results are 1. a greater number of nonprosodic choices in the aphasic group; 2. an identical influence of the congruence/conflict variable on aphasics and control subjects; 3. an identical influence of the semantic content of the conflict sentences on both groups. Aphasic impairment is interpreted as purely quantitative, since affective semantic content influences the decoding of the sentences.
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Cited by (29)
Disorders of vocal emotional expression and comprehension: The aprosodias
2021, Handbook of Clinical NeurologyCitation Excerpt :No data were presented for normal controls for comparison. Seron et al. (1982) reported that affective-prosodic comprehension was correlated with verbal-linguistic comprehension. Cancelliere and Kertesz (1990) observed that various types of aprosodic syndromes occurred after LBD, noting that some of the patients had only mild aphasic deficits.
Language is traditionally considered to be a dominant function of the left hemisphere because of its role in modulating the propositional or literal aspects of language (what is said). This chapter, however, will address the vital role of the right hemisphere in modulating the nonverbal, affective-prosodic aspects of speech (how it is said) that are essential for appropriate interpersonal interactions, communication competency, and psychosocial well-being. Focal right hemisphere lesions cause various disorders of affective prosody (aprosodic syndromes) that are analogous to the various aphasic syndromes that occur following focal left hemisphere lesions. Disorders of affective prosody may present clinically as loss of psychosocial well-being with disruption of interpersonal relationships. This chapter will review the research published over the last four decades that has helped to elucidate the neurobiology of affective prosody and the pathophysiology underlying the aprosodic syndromes.
Neurology of affective prosody and its functional-anatomic organization in right hemisphere
2008, Brain and LanguageUnlike the aphasic syndromes, the organization of affective prosody in brain has remained controversial because affective-prosodic deficits may occur after left or right brain damage. However, different patterns of deficits are observed following left and right brain damage that suggest affective prosody is a dominant and lateralized function of the right hemisphere. Using the Aprosodia Battery, which was developed to differentiate left and right hemisphere patterns of affective-prosodic deficits, functional–anatomic evidence is presented in patients with focal ischemic strokes to support the concepts that (1) affective prosody is a dominant and lateralized function of the right hemisphere, (2) the intrahemispheric organization of affective prosody in the right hemisphere, with the partial exception of Repetition, is analogous to the organization of propositional language in the left hemisphere and (3) the aprosodic syndromes are cortically based as part of evolutionary adaptations underlying human language and communication.
Cerebral mechanisms for understanding emotional prosody in speech
2006, Brain and LanguageHemispheric contributions to the processing of emotional speech prosody were investigated by comparing adults with a focal lesion involving the right (n = 9) or left (n = 11) hemisphere and adults without brain damage (n = 12). Participants listened to semantically anomalous utterances in three conditions (discrimination, identification, and rating) which assessed their recognition of five prosodic emotions under the influence of different task- and response-selection demands. Findings revealed that right- and left-hemispheric lesions were associated with impaired comprehension of prosody, although possibly for distinct reasons: right-hemisphere compromise produced a more pervasive insensitivity to emotive features of prosodic stimuli, whereas left-hemisphere damage yielded greater difficulties interpreting prosodic representations as a code embedded with language content.
Major syndromes of the minor hemisphere
2005, EMC - NeurologieDepuis plus de 50 ans, l'hémisphère droit n'est plus considéré comme le partenaire mineur de notre cerveau. Son rôle dominant sur l'hémisphère gauche a été reconnu à travers plusieurs syndromes qui se manifestent préférentiellement après une lésion de l'hémisphère droit, comme l'héminégligence, l'anosognosie, la désorientation topographique et la dysprosodie. Ces pathologies montrent que, en conditions physiologiques, l'hémisphère droit est déterminant pour les processus attentionnels et d'intégration sensorielle polymodale nécessaires à la compréhension du soi et de l'environnement. Les aspects confabulatoires qui caractérisent l'anosognosie, les délires d'identification et les autres syndromes neuropsychiatriques conséquents mettent particulièrement en relief le rôle des aires associatives polymodales du cerveau droit pour les activités neurales qui sont impliquées dans cette conscience de soi et de l'environnement. Un autre pôle d'intérêt dans l'étude des mécanismes cérébraux concerne le rôle de l'hémisphère droit dans les processus émotionnels, en particulier lors de la communication. Bien que les fonctions lexicales et linguistiques dépendent de l'hémisphère gauche, l'hémisphère droit conditionne les aspects affectifs de la communication tels que la prosodie et la compréhension des expressions faciales, et également d'autres aspects plus généraux comme la compréhension abstraite et figurative du langage. L'individu qui est atteint d'une lésion étendue de l'hémisphère droit semble communiquer, presque toujours, suffisamment bien et sans déficits phonologiques lors d'une conversation brève et superficielle, mais lors d'un examen plus approfondi, il peut apparaître peu communicatif, détaché ou brusque ou bavard, et également moins perspicace, peu sensible aux contenus émotionnels. À la différence de l'aphasie qui découle d'une atteinte hémisphérique gauche, les déficits de communication spécifiques à l'hémisphère droit s'intègrent encore peu dans des modèles cognitifs, mais ils font l'objet d'une recherche neuropsychologique et neurophysiologique intense.
For more than 50 years, the right hemisphere is no longer considered the minor partner of the brain. Several syndromes that preferentially emerge after right hemisphere damage (such as unilateral spatial neglect, anosognosia, topographical disorientation and dysprosody) have shown its dominant role on the left hemisphere. Such contexts confirm that, in physiological conditions, the right hemisphere has a central role in those attention and polymodal sensorial integration processes that are necessary for self- and environment appraisal. The pathogenesis of the right hemisphere specific syndromes is an active domain of neurosciences research. The confabulatory phenomena that characterize the anosognosia, misidentification syndromes, or other neuropsychiatric conditions due to right brain damage, give further relevance to the role of right polymodal associative brain areas in the neural process that elaborates self and environment awareness. Another field of interest is the role of the right brain in emotional processes. Although lexical and linguistic abilities depend on the left hemisphere, the right hemisphere plays a central role in the affective aspects of communication such as prosody and comprehension of facial expressions, and in the understanding of abstractions and figurative aspects of language. The individual with extensive right brain damage almost always seems to adequately communicate in superficial conversations, without evident phonological impairment, but with a more detailed analysis he may appear less communicative, distracted or abrupt, verbose but less perspicacious and emotionally flat. Unlike aphasic syndromes due to left hemisphere damage, right brain communicative deficits may not be integrated in any cognitive or anatomo-functional model but they are the subject of very active neuropsychological and neurophysiological research.
The neural response to emotional prosody, as revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging
2003, NeuropsychologiaProsody is an important feature of language, comprising intonation, loudness, and tempo. Emotional prosodic processing forms an integral part of our social interactions. The main aim of this study was to use bold contrast fMRI to clarify the normal functional neuroanatomy of emotional prosody, in passive and active contexts. Subjects performed six separate scanning studies, within which two different conditions were contrasted: (1) “pure” emotional prosody versus rest; (2) congruent emotional prosody versus ‘neutral’ sentences; (3) congruent emotional prosody versus rest; (4) incongruent emotional prosody versus rest; (5) congruent versus incongruent emotional prosody; and (6) an active experiment in which subjects were instructed to either attend to the emotion conveyed by semantic content or that conveyed by tone of voice. Data resulting from these contrasts were analysed using SPM99. Passive listening to emotional prosody consistently activated the lateral temporal lobe (superior and/or middle temporal gyri). This temporal lobe response was relatively right-lateralised with or without semantic information. Both the separate and direct comparisons of congruent and incongruent emotional prosody revealed that subjects used fewer brain regions to process incongruent emotional prosody than congruent. The neural response to attention to semantics, was left lateralised, and recruited an extensive network not activated by attention to emotional prosody. Attention to emotional prosody modulated the response to speech, and induced right-lateralised activity, including the middle temporal gyrus. In confirming the results of lesion and neuropsychological studies, the current study emphasises the importance of the right hemisphere in the processing of emotional prosody, specifically the lateral temporal lobes.
Categorical and dimensional decoding of emotional intonations in patients with focal brain lesions
1997, Brain and LanguageThe present study attempts to elucidate whether cerebral brain lesions differentially affect the crossmodal decoding of emotional intonations in semantically meaningless sentences. Forty patients with well-documented lesions and 12 matched hospital controls participated in the study. Twenty-one had left brain damage (LBD: 12 with anterorolandic (anterior) and 9 with retrorolandic-infrasylvian (posterior) lesions); 19 had right brain damage (RBD: 12 anterior, 7 posterior lesions). The decoding of emotioncategorieswas measured using (a) multiple choice of verbal labels and (b) matching one emotional vocalization (joy, fear, sadness, or anger) with two choice facial expressions. Crossmodaldimensionaldecoding was assessed by matching vocalizations with two facial expressions with regard to emotional valence or arousal. Results indicate that labeling was reduced in all lesion groups as compared to that in controls. Crossmodal categorical recognition was impaired in RBD, whereas LBD performance was comparable to controls. However, in the dimensional decoding task, a reduced recognition of valence in LBD and arousal in RBD was observed. An analysis of localizational subgroups revealed that subjects with left ventral frontal lesions, which in part extended into the adjacent right hemisphere, were predominantly impaired in the crossmodal identification of valence, whereas right temporoparietal lesions affected arousal decoding. Our results suggest that lateralized lesions may differentially affect the crossmodal recognition of dimensional concepts such as valence and arousal.