Affective communication deficits associated with cerebellar degeneration

The cerebellum has extensive connections with the frontal lobes. Cerebellar injury has been reported to induce frontal-executive cognitive dysfunction and blunting of affect. We examined a patient with idiopathic cerebellar degeneration with impaired family relationships attributed to an “emotional disconnection.” Examination revealed ataxia, dysmetria, and adiadochokinesia more severe on the left and frontal-executive dysfunction; memory and cognitive functions were otherwise normal. Testing of emotional communication included assessments of emotional semantic knowledge, emotional prosody, and emotional facial expressions. Comprehension was normal but expression was severely impaired. Cerebellar dysfunction can cause a defect in facial and prosodic emotional communication.     

On the intersection of phonetic detail and the organization of interaction: Clinical connections

Abstract

The analysis of language use in real-world contexts poses particular methodological challenges. We codify responses to these challenges as a series of methodological imperatives. To demonstrate the relevance of these imperatives to clinical investigation, we present analyses of single episodes of interaction where one participant has a speech and/or language impairment: atypical prosody, echolalia and dysarthria. We demonstrate there is considerable heuristic and analytic value in taking this approach to analysing the organization of interaction involving individuals with a speech and/or language impairment.     

Abnormal singing can identify patients with right hemisphere cortical strokes at risk for impaired prosody

Despite lacking aphasia seen with left hemisphere (LH) infarcts involving the middle cerebral artery territory, right hemisphere (RH) strokes can result in significant difficulties in affective prosody. These impairments may be more difficult to identify but lead to significant communication problems.We determine if evaluation of singing can accurately identify stroke patients with cortical RH infarcts at risk for prosodic impairment who may benefit from rehabilitation.A prospective cohort of 36 patients evaluated with acute ischemic stroke was recruited. Participants underwent an experimental battery evaluating their singing, prosody comprehension, and prosody production. Singing samples were rated by 2 independent reviewers as subjectively “normal” or “abnormal,” and analyzed for properties of the fundamental frequency. Relationships between infarct location, singing, and prosody performance were evaluated using t tests and chi-squared analysis.Eighty percent of participants with LH cortical strokes were unable to successfully complete any of the tasks due to severe aphasia. For the remainder, singing ratings corresponded to stroke location for 68% of patients. RH cortical strokes demonstrated a lower mean fundamental frequency while singing than those with subcortical infarcts (176.8 vs 130.4, P = 0.02). They also made more errors on tasks of prosody comprehension (28.6 vs 16.0, P < 0.001) and production (40.4 vs 18.4, P < 0.001).Patients with RH cortical infarcts are more likely to exhibit impaired prosody comprehension and production and demonstrate the poor variation of tone when singing compared to patients with subcortical infarcts. A simple singing screen is able to successfully identify patients with cortical lesions and potential prosodic deficits.     

Atypical lateralisation in emotional prosody in men with schizotypy

Individuals high in schizotypy have been shown to reveal reduced lateralisation in verbal processing which may be influenced by an impaired left hemisphere performance. However, little is known about schizotypy and right hemisphere functions such as emotional perception. The present study focuses on atypical lateralisation in language and emotional prosody in Impulsive Non-conformity (IMP), a specific aspect of schizotypy. A total of 41 participants (20 females) performed a dichotic listening linguistic and emotional prosody task, which typically shows a right ear advantage (REA) and left ear advantage (LEA), respectively. A median split based on the IMP scale included in the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences was used to divide the sample into high and low scorers. The results revealed a selective reduction of the LEA in the prosody task in high-IMP males. Females high and low in IMP revealed typical lateralisation in both tasks. The results indicate that high-IMP males are especially prone to atypical lateralisation in emotional prosody, which parallels those findings in male patients with schizophrenia. The results suggest similarities in sex-specific atypical brain organisation between schizotypy and schizophrenia.     

Adding Sentence Types to a Model of Syntactic Category Acquisition

The acquisition of syntactic categories is a crucial step in the process of acquiring syntax. At this stage, before a full grammar is available, only surface cues are available to the learner. Previous computational models have demonstrated that local contexts are informative for syntactic categorization. However, local contexts are affected by sentence‐level structure. In this paper, we add sentence type as an observed feature to a model of syntactic category acquisition, based on experimental evidence showing that pre‐syntactic children are able to distinguish sentence type using prosody and other cues. The model, a Bayesian Hidden Markov Model, allows for adding sentence type in a few different ways; we find that sentence type can aid syntactic category acquisition if it is used to characterize the differences in word order between sentence types. In these models, knowledge of sentence type permits similar gains to those found by extending the local context.     

Breathing‐impaired speech after brain haemorrhage: A case study

Results are presented from an auditory and acoustic analysis of the speech of an adult male with impaired prosody and articulation due to brain haemorrhage. They show marked effects on phonation, speech rate and articulator velocity, and a speech rhythm disrupted by “intrusive” stresses. These effects are discussed in relation to the speaker's very short breath‐groups and consequent need to take breath within intonation‐groups and even within rhythm‐groups. The speaker appears to have various strategies for dealing with his speech problems to preserve the structural cohesion of his utterances, some seemingly more successful than others, including planning his frequent breath pauses, using falsetto phonation, control of pitch and inspiring air orally for rapid intake. Finally, it is suggested that these and other strategies designed to compensate for limitations and shortcomings in the speech production system should be recognized as a form of linguistic creativity.     

Intonation features of the expression of emotions in Spanish: preliminary study for a prosody assessment procedure

This study aimed to find out what intonation features reliably represent the emotions of “liking” as opposed to “disliking” in the Spanish language, with a view to designing a prosody assessment procedure for use with children with speech and language disorders. 18 intonationally different prosodic realisations (tokens) of one word (limón) were recorded by one native Spanish speaker. The tokens were deemed representative of two categories of emotion: liking or disliking of the taste “lemon”. 30 native Spanish speakers assigned them to the two categories and rated their expressiveness on a six‐point scale. For all tokens except two, agreement between judges as to category was highly significant, some tokens attracting 100% agreement. The intonation contours most related to expressiveness levels were: for “liking”, an inverted U form contour with exaggerated pitch peak within the tonic syllable; and for “disliking”, a flat melodic contour with a slight fall.     

The role of prosody in a case of foreign accent syndrome (FAS)

Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is a rare disorder characterized by the emergence of a perceived foreign accent following brain damage. The symptomotology, functional bases, and neural substrates of this disorder are still being elucidated. In this case study, acoustic analyses were performed on the speech of a 46‐year old monolingual female who presented with FAS of unknown aetiology. The patient had a pseudo‐accent frequently described as ‘Swedish’ or ‘Eastern European’. Stop consonant VOT, consonant burst spectra and duration, vowel durations, formant frequencies, and trajectories were analysed, along with prosodic cues for lexical stress assignment and sentence‐level intonation. Results indicated VOT values were generally preserved, while there was a strong tendency to realize the English alveolar flap as a full stop, and to produce flaps that had greater‐than‐normal closure durations. The spectral properties of the patient's vowels resembled those of normal talkers (with the possible exceptions of decreased F1 values for /i/ and slight differences in formant dynamics for /u/, /o/, /i/, and /?/). However, vowel durations were relatively long, contributing to exaggerated tense/lax contrasts. Token‐to‐token variability in vowel production was slightly higher than normal for duration, but not for formant frequency values. Lexical stress assignment was inaccurate and highly variable (with similar problems noted for non‐speech materials), and sentence level intonation showed occasional deviations from typical American English patterns. For this patient, an underlying timing/rhythm difficulty appeared responsible for the range of segmental and suprasegmental changes leading to the impression of a foreign accent.