Herrmann Christoph S, Friederici Angela D, Oertel Ulrich, Maess Burkhard, Hahne Anja, Alter Kai
Max Planck Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, PO Box 500 355, 04303 Leipzig, Germany.
Brain Lang. 2003 Jun;85(3):396-401. doi: 10.1016/s0093-934x(03)00054-3.
Brain processes underlying spoken language comprehension comprise auditory encoding, prosodic analysis and linguistic evaluation. Auditory encoding usually activates both hemispheres while language-specific stages are lateralized: analysis of prosodic cues are right-lateralized while linguistic evaluation is left-lateralized. Here, we investigated to what extent the absence of prosodic information influences lateralization. MEG brain-responses indicated that syntactic violations lead to early bi-lateral brain responses for syntax violations. When the pitch of sentences was flattened to diminish prosodic cues, the brain's syntax response was lateralized to the right hemisphere, indicating that the missing pitch was generated automatically by the brain when it was absent. This represents a Gestalt phenomenon, since we perceive more than is actually presented.
