Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Question/statement judgments: an fMRI study of intonation processing.

Colin P Doherty1, W Caroline West, Laura C Dilley

  • 1Neuropsychology Laboratory and MGH/MIT/HMS Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. cpdoherty@partners.org

Human Brain Mapping
|September 2, 2004
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Could immunotherapy be a feasible treatment option for patient's suffering from chronic epilepsy?

Immunotherapy·2026
Same author

Should Love be Explicitly Stated as a Core Enabling Concept in the Medical Curriculum?

Journal of medical education and curricular development·2026
Same author

Blood-brain barrier disruption, traumatic encephalopathy, and cognitive decline in retired athletes.

Science translational medicine·2026
Same author

Action potential: Impact of climate change on neurological disease in Ireland.

Irish journal of medical science·2025
Same author

(Not so) universal literacy screening: a survey of educators reveals variability in implementation.

Annals of dyslexia·2025
Same author

Impact of epilepsy on people experiencing homelessness: A mixed-methods study.

Epilepsia·2025
Same journal

Benchmarking fMRI Denoising Pipelines.

Human brain mapping·2026
Same journal

Modeled Long-Term Effects of Psilocybin on Dynamic Activity and Effective Connectivity of Fronto-Striatal-Thalamic Circuits.

Human brain mapping·2026
Same journal

Intrinsic Functional Architecture Reflects Individual Differences in Passive Working Memory: An Exploratory Resting-State fMRI Study.

Human brain mapping·2026
Same journal

Symptom Overlap and Neurobiological Similarities Between Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Tinnitus.

Human brain mapping·2026
Same journal

Test-Retest Reliability of Sensorimotor Activity Measured With Spinal Cord fMRI.

Human brain mapping·2026
Same journal

The Human Visual Claustrum Responses to Physical Stimulus Properties and Subjective Content During Movie Viewing.

Human brain mapping·2026
See all related articles

This study found that rising intonation in questions activates specific brain regions. This brain activity differs from statements and questions with falling intonation, highlighting the neural basis of intonation processing.

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Science
  • Linguistics

Background:

  • Intonation plays a crucial role in conveying meaning and grammatical structure.
  • Distinguishing between questions and statements often relies on prosodic cues like intonation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the neural correlates of processing intonational differences between questions and statements.
  • To identify brain regions responsive to rising intonation in questions.

Main Methods:

  • Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) using echo-planar imaging (EPI) was employed.
  • Event-related paradigm analyzing blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal changes.
  • Subjects performed judgments on digitized utterances: rising intonation questions (RQ), falling intonation statements (FS), and falling intonation questions (FQ).

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • Increased BOLD activity was observed in bilateral inferior frontal and temporal regions for RQ compared to FQ and FS.
  • These findings suggest distinct neural processing for rising intonation in questions.

Conclusions:

  • The study identifies specific brain regions involved in processing intonationally marked illocutionary differences.
  • Results contribute to understanding the neural basis of how intonation differentiates questions from statements.