Comprehension of neutral, melodically intoned, and affectively toned sentences by adults with aphasia

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there is a notable improvement in the auditory comprehension of adults with aphasia when sentences are melodically intoned or spoken with strong affect, as compared to when the same sentence materials are spoken in a neutral manner. The subjects for this study were six aphasic patients with left-brain damage and two control subjects: one patient with bilateral brain damage and one subject with no history of neurological insult. The subjects responded to a picture identification task where the same sentence stimuli were presented in three conditions: neutral, melodic intonation, and strong affect. There was no significant difference in the left-brain damaged patients' auditory comprehension scores in the three conditions. No improvement of performance was noted for the bilaterally brain-damaged patient, and the nonaphasic subject attained a perfect or near-perfect score in each condition. Results are discussed in terms of the need for future research.