The brain generates its own sentence melody: A Gestalt phenomenon in speech perception

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Christoph S. Herrmann - , Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg (Author)
  • Angela D. Friederici - , Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Author)
  • Ulrich Oertel - , Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Author)
  • Burkhard Maess - , Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Author)
  • Anja Hahne - , Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Author)
  • Kai Alter - , Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Author)

Abstract

Brain processes underlying spoken language comprehension comprise auditory encoding, prosodic analysis and linguistic evaluation. Auditory encoding usually activates both hemispheres while language-specific stages are lateralized: analysis of prosodic cues are right-lateralized while linguistic evaluation is left-lateralized. Here, we investigated to what extent the absence of prosodic information influences lateralization. MEG brain-responses indicated that syntactic violations lead to early bi-lateral brain responses for syntax violations. When the pitch of sentences was flattened to diminish prosodic cues, the brain's syntax response was lateralized to the right hemisphere, indicating that the missing pitch was generated automatically by the brain when it was absent. This represents a Gestalt phenomenon, since we perceive more than is actually presented.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)396-401
Number of pages6
JournalBrain and Language
Volume85
Issue number3
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2003
Peer-reviewedYes
Externally publishedYes

External IDs

PubMed 12744951
ORCID /0000-0002-8487-9977/work/148145468

Keywords

Keywords

  • Brain, ELAN, Gestalt, Lateralization, MEG, Pitch, Prosody, Syntax