Abstract
Auditory pitch patterns are significant ecological features to which
nervous systems have exquisitely adapted. Pitch patterns are found
embedded in many contexts, enabling different information-processing
goals. Do the psychological functions of pitch patterns determine
the neural mechanisms supporting their perception, or do all pitch
patterns, regardless of function, engage the same mechanisms? This
issue is pursued in the present study by using 150-water positron
emission tomography to study brain activations when two subject groups
discriminate pitch patterns in their respective native languages,
one of which is a tonal language and the other of which is not. In
a tonal language, pitch patterns signal lexical meaning. Native Mandarin-speaking
and English-speaking listeners discriminated pitch patterns embedded
in Mandarin and English words and also passively listened to the
same stimuli. When Mandarin listeners discriminated pitch embedded
in Mandarin lexical tones, the left anterior insular cortex was the
most active. When they discriminated pitch patterns embedded in English
words, the homologous area in the right hemisphere activated as it
did in English-speaking listeners discriminating pitch patterns embedded
in either Mandarin or English words. These results support the view
that neural responses to physical acoustic stimuli depend on the
function of those stimuli and implicate anterior insular cortex in
auditory processing, with the left insular cortex especially responsive
to linguistic stimuli.
- adolescent,adult,analysis
- behavior,verbal
- behavior:
- blood
- circulation,cerebrovascular
- circulation:
- cortex,cerebral
- cortex:
- discrimination,pitch
- discrimination:
- flow
- imaging,cerebrovascular
- mapping,cerebral
- of
- perception,pitch
- perception,speech
- perception:
- physiology
- physiology,cerebral
- physiology,humans,language,male,pitch
- physiology,pitch
- physiology,positron-emission
- physiology,speech
- physiology,verbal
- radionuclide
- supply,cerebral
- time,reaction
- time:
- tomography,reaction
- variance,blood
- velocity,brain
Users
Please
log in to take part in the discussion (add own reviews or comments).