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Cortical processing of discrete prosodic patterns in continuous speech
G Nike Gnanateja1, Kyle Rupp2, Fernando Llanos3
1Speech Processing and Auditory Neuroscience Lab, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorder, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
Nature Communications
|March 3, 2025
Summary
Heschl's gyrus (HG) abstracts pitch accents in human speech, crucial for communicative intent. This early prosodic processing in HG, unlike in non-human primates, highlights the role of experience.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Auditory Processing
- Speech Communication
Background:
- Prosody is essential for conveying meaning in speech.
- The superior temporal gyrus (STG) is a known prosody hub.
- The role of Heschl's gyrus (HG) in prosody, particularly pitch accent processing, is not well understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the neural mechanisms of pitch accent processing in human and non-human primate auditory cortices.
- To determine if Heschl's gyrus (HG) abstracts prosodic information beyond basic acoustic features.
- To compare prosodic processing in HG and STG and across species.
Main Methods:
- Intracerebral recordings in human epilepsy patients and non-human primates.
- Analysis of neural responses to narrative speech, focusing on pitch accents.
- Multivariate modeling to assess abstract representation of pitch accent categories.
Main Results:
- Heschl's gyrus (HG) in humans encodes pitch accents as abstract representations, distinct from segmental speech.
- HG demonstrates superior performance over STG in disambiguating pitch accents.
- Non-human primates processed spectrotemporal features but did not abstract pitch accents.
Conclusions:
- Heschl's gyrus (HG) plays a critical role in the early abstraction of prosodic information, specifically pitch accents.
- Experience significantly shapes the capacity for abstract prosodic representation.
- Findings advance the understanding of neural basis of human speech processing and prosody.
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