Gastvortrag im Rahmen des Kolloquiums "Progress in Brain Language Research"

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Presenter: Dr. Daniela Sammler, MPI Leipzig

Title: Voice or words – the neural contribution of prosody to communication

Abstract:

Language is more than just words. Speakers often reveal their (true) emotions and intentions by the way things are said—by speech prosody. How the brain extracts meaning from voice tone remains, however, poorly understood. Here, I will integrate previous neurofunctional accounts of language with novel evidence from neuroimaging, brain stimulation and lesion studies to reveal the complex neurocognitive architecture of prosody perception in speech. I will show (i) dual streams for prosody in the right hemisphere, (ii) their transcallosal interaction with the left hemisphere, (iii) sensorimotor contributions to prosody perception, and (iv) the relevance of social cognition for the extraction of meaning from prosody. Taken together, this research proposes the interaction of several complementary mechanisms during prosody perception and offers a fresh look on the neural basis of interpersonal communication and mutual understanding.

Selected publications

Hellbernd N, Sammler D. (2016) Prosody convey’s speaker’s intentions: Acoustic cues for speech act perception. J Mem Lang, 88: 70-86.

Sammler D, Grosbras MH, Anwander A, Bestelmeyer PEG, Belin P. (2015) Dorsal and ventral pathways for prosody. Curr Biol, 25(23): 3079-3085.

Sammler D, Kotz SA, Eckstein K, Ott DV, Friederici AD. (2010). Prosody meets syntax: the role of the corpus callosum. Brain, 133(9): 2643-2655.

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