The brain generates its own sentence melody: A Gestalt phenomenon in speech perception
Research output: Contribution to journal › Research article › Contributed › peer-review
Contributors
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 language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 396-401 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Brain and Language |
Volume | 85 |
Issue number | 3 |
Publication status | Published - Jun 2003 |
Peer-reviewed | Yes |
Externally published | Yes |
External IDs
PubMed | 12744951 |
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ORCID | /0000-0002-8487-9977/work/148145468 |
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Keywords
- Brain, ELAN, Gestalt, Lateralization, MEG, Pitch, Prosody, Syntax