Neural bases of social communicative intentions in speech

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
Nele Hellbernd, Daniela Sammler

Abstract

Our ability to understand others' communicative intentions in speech is key to successful social interaction. Indeed, misunderstanding an 'excuse me' as apology, while meant as criticism, may have important consequences. Recent behavioural studies have provided evidence that prosody, that is, vocal tone, is an important indicator for speakers' intentions. Using a novel audio-morphing paradigm, the present functional magnetic resonance imaging study examined the neurocognitive mechanisms that allow listeners to 'read' speakers' intents from vocal prosodic patterns. Participants categorized prosodic expressions that gradually varied in their acoustics between criticism, doubt, and suggestion. Categorizing typical exemplars of the three intentions induced activations along the ventral auditory stream, complemented by amygdala and mentalizing system. These findings likely depict the stepwise conversion of external perceptual information into abstract prosodic categories and internal social semantic concepts, including the speaker's mental state. Ambiguous tokens, in turn, involved cingulo-opercular areas known to assist decision-making in case of conflicting cues. Auditory and decision-making processes were flexibly coupled with th...Continue Reading

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Citations

Mar 6, 2019·Brain Sciences·Mark Reybrouck, Piotr Podlipniak
Nov 26, 2019·Social Neuroscience·Yohsuke OhtsuboHideki Ohira
Jan 21, 2020·Human Brain Mapping·Pei-Ju ChienDaniela Sammler
Jun 25, 2020·Cerebral Cortex·Stella GuldnerCarolyn McGettigan
Jun 13, 2021·Cortex; a Journal Devoted to the Study of the Nervous System and Behavior·Leon O H Kroczek, Thomas C Gunter

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