Prosody, the melody and intonation of speech, is an extremely important and usually undervalued component of human communication. A significant component of human social interactions depends on prosody.
The aim of the present project is to explore the application of recent approaches and concepts in human brain mapping to the study of perception and production of prosody. The initial goal of the research is to determine the degree to which perception and production of prosody rely on shared neural systems. This will be determined by an fMRI study of regions of overlap in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) during the perception and production of a meaningless phrase in different prosodic intonations. A second goal is to determine individual differences in this shared circuitry for perception and production. Here, we ask: Why are some people better than others at picking up subtle intonations in speech? Are such people more empathetic to the emotions of other people? Are they better at simulating another's prosodic input onto their own motor representations? To explore these questions, subjects will complete behavioral measures in prosody production, perception, and/or empathy. Scores on these measures will be correlated with brain activity in the region of the IFG previously identified as active in that individual for both prosody perception and production. Elucidating the neural basis of prosody will make an important contribution to the neurobiology of non-verbal communication, and by extension, of social communication. Furthermore, this research will improve the understanding of the communication deficits which result from brain injury, as well as the understanding of core deficits of socially isolating neurological and psychiatric disorders (such as stroke, traumatic head injury, autism).
One of the primary mechanisms of communication and social interaction is the exchange of prosodic information. Understanding the neural basis of prosody will make an important contribution to elucidating the neurobiology of non-verbal communication, and by extension, of social communication. Also, this is important for better understanding core deficits of socially isolating psychiatric and neurological disorders, such as autism and traumatic head injury.
| Aziz-Zadeh, Lisa; Sheng, Tong; Gheytanchi, Anahita (2010) Common premotor regions for the perception and production of prosody and correlations with empathy and prosodic ability. PLoS One 5:e8759 |
| Sheng, Tong; Gheytanchi, Anahita; Aziz-Zadeh, Lisa (2010) Default network deactivations are correlated with psychopathic personality traits. PLoS One 5:e12611 |
