open access
Emotional prosody expression in acoustic analysis in patients with right hemisphere ischemic stroke
- Department of Neurology, Wroclaw Medical University, Wroclaw, Poland
open access
Abstract
The role of the right cerebral hemisphere in nonverbal speech activities remains controversial. Most research supports the dominant role of the right hemisphere in the control of emotional prosody. There has been significant discussion of the participation of cortical and subcortical structures of the right hemisphere in the processing of various acoustic speech parameters. The aim of this study was an acoustic analysis of the speech parameters during emotional expression in right hemisphere ischemic strokes with an attempt to reference the results to lesion location.
Materials and methodsAcoustic speech analysis was conducted on forty-six right-handed patients with right-middle cerebral artery stroke, together with 34 age-matched people in the control group. We compared the results of acoustic studies between patients with varying infarct locations and the control group.
ResultsVariations in fundamental frequency during verbal expression of joy, anger and sadness were significantly smaller in the patient group than in the control group. Cortical lesion caused more restrictions in fundamental frequency variation in the expression of joy and a lower voice intensity in expressions of anger and joy compared to those patients with subcortical lesions.
ConclusionsCortical lesion was associated with a more impaired expression of emotional prosody than subcortical lesion. The results indicate the leading role of the cortical structures of the right hemisphere in the expression of emotional prosody.
Abstract
The role of the right cerebral hemisphere in nonverbal speech activities remains controversial. Most research supports the dominant role of the right hemisphere in the control of emotional prosody. There has been significant discussion of the participation of cortical and subcortical structures of the right hemisphere in the processing of various acoustic speech parameters. The aim of this study was an acoustic analysis of the speech parameters during emotional expression in right hemisphere ischemic strokes with an attempt to reference the results to lesion location.
Materials and methodsAcoustic speech analysis was conducted on forty-six right-handed patients with right-middle cerebral artery stroke, together with 34 age-matched people in the control group. We compared the results of acoustic studies between patients with varying infarct locations and the control group.
ResultsVariations in fundamental frequency during verbal expression of joy, anger and sadness were significantly smaller in the patient group than in the control group. Cortical lesion caused more restrictions in fundamental frequency variation in the expression of joy and a lower voice intensity in expressions of anger and joy compared to those patients with subcortical lesions.
ConclusionsCortical lesion was associated with a more impaired expression of emotional prosody than subcortical lesion. The results indicate the leading role of the cortical structures of the right hemisphere in the expression of emotional prosody.
Keywords
Emotional prosody, Right hemisphere, Acoustic speech analysis
Title
Emotional prosody expression in acoustic analysis in patients with right hemisphere ischemic stroke
Journal
Neurologia i Neurochirurgia Polska
Issue
Pages
113-120
Page views
473
Article views/downloads
743
DOI
10.1016/j.pjnns.2015.03.004
Bibliographic record
Neurol Neurochir Pol 2015;49(2):113-120.
Keywords
Emotional prosody
Right hemisphere
Acoustic speech analysis
Authors
Konstanty Guranski
Ryszard Podemski