Prosodic Deficits Research Articles

Speech Prosody in Affective Contexts in Thai Patients with Right Hemisphere Lesions

The production of speech prosody in emotional contexts was examined in Thai patients: with unilateral right hemisphere damage. Twelve right hemisphere patients and nine normals read target sentences embedded in paragraphs that cued either a happy, sad, or neutral affect. Perceptual evaluations of their productions revealed a severe deficit in right hemisphere patients. Acoustic analysis indicated that long term measures of fundamental frequency, timing, and energy at the sentence level were aberrant in right hemisphere patients. Findings are discussed in relation to nature and extent of prosodic deficits in right hemisphere patients, hemispheric specialization for linguistic and affective prosody, and the effect of language structure on the manifestation of affective prosody.

Disruption of prosody after frontal lobe seizures in the non-dominant hemisphere

Abstract The perception and production of linguistic and affective prosody at the word, phrase, and sentence levels were examined to delineate the nature of a prosodic deficit evident in a 20-year-old female with a history of seizures in the non-dominant frontal lobe. Acoustic–perceptual analysis of conversational and elicited speech revealed that both perception and production of affective and linguistic prosody were impaired. Acoustic analysis further indicated that timing and intensity were impaired, whereas fundamental frequency (F 0) was relatively spared. Her prosodic profile indicated that disruption of F 0 in longer and more complex prosodic units was secondary to an underlying timing deficit. Findings are interpreted to support the view that prosody is a multifaceted process that is not adequately described by current models of hemispheric specialization for prosody. In addition, findings are brought to bear on issues concerning language and epilepsy, as well as psycholinguistic models of languag...

Affect processing in chronically psychotic patients: development of a reliable assessment tool

We developed an economical clinical tool for assessing affect processing deficits in patients with chronic schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. Using trained raters, we assessed spontaneous prosody, prosodic comprehension, prosodic repetition, and recognition of facial affect. High interrater reliability and good separation between subscales was demonstrated. Our tool discriminated between the performance of subjects versus controls on measures of spontaneous prosody and prosodic comprehension, suggesting the presence of prosodic deficits in psychiatric patients. These findings underscore the need for reliable and valid testing tools which will allow greater understanding of affective prosodic processing deficits in psychiatric populations.

Foreign accent syndrome: Behavioural and anatomical findings in recovered and non-recovered patients

Abstract Four right-handed monolingual Spanish-speaking patients who developed a foreign accent syndrome (FAS) during the recovery period from a non-fluent aphasia or an aphemia are reported. The FAS resolved rapidly (within 2 months) in two patients, both with small stroke lesions in the posterior margin of the left middle frontal gyrus. In the other two patients, who had lesions involving the middle portion of the left precentral gyrus and the white matter underlying the right sensory-motor cortex, the FAS lasted more than 1 year. Phonetic and fundamental frequency (F0) analysis showed atypical articulatory and prosodic patterns in the two patients with a long-lasting FAS, but only abnormal prosodic features in the two recovered cases. These findings suggest that: (1) a selective involvement of specific portions of Brodmann's areas 4 and 6, and/or its subcortical projections, may account for the peculiar combination of segmental and prosodic deficits underlying the FAS; and (2) recovery seems to be rela...

Transcortical motor aprosodia: Functional and anatomical correlates

Transcortical motor aprosodia (TMA), one of eight hypothesized disorders of affective communication, is characterized by impaired production of affective prosody and facial gestures, with intact imitation and comprehension of affect. It has been proposed that cortical TMA arises from lesions in the superior or anterior lateral surface of the right frontal lobe, but for various reasons it has not been possible to fully test this proposal. There have been few cases of TMA reported, and lesions have been too diffuse to permit accurate localization. A case is presented that meets both the functional and anatomical criteria proposed for cortical TMA, thus providing support for this system of classifying disorders of effective communication. Results suggest that the prosodic and gestural deficits in TMA may be dissociated, and that the gestural component extends to nonaffective facial movements.

Dysprosody and the non-dominant hemisphere

Research carried out in the last two decennia has shown that right brain damage could disturb the production and reception of suprasegmentals. Dextrals with right hemispheric lesions may find it difficult to intone speech and/or to discriminate between various intonations or accentuations. However, right brain damage does not invariably entail some kind of dysprosody. Detailed investigation of a righthanded male with right temporo-parietal excision failed to uncover any prosodic deficit. Moreover, critical review of the positive cases reported so far indicates that dysprosody, when it occurs following injury to the right hemisphere, results from a neuro-motor deficit or from disturbed auditory discrimination. As a consequence, it cannot be considered a specific language disturbance. Moreover, dysprosody may also result from damage to the left hemisphere in dextrals. Accordingly, there is little evidence to support a recent claim that the right hemisphere is dominant for affective prosody in much the same way as the left hemisphere is dominant for propositional speech.