📚 Together, these profiles show that prosody processing occupies a 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗰𝘁 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗲 in the human brain, while maintaining tight links with verbal language processing and the processing of dynamic facial cues. 13/

🙂𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁 𝟱:
Prosody areas are separable but partly overlapping with 𝗱𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗰 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲 perception areas. This overlap may reflect the need to integrate prosody with other non-verbal communication signals. 12/

🗣️ Interestingly, the dominant LH lang areas are mainly sensitive to prosody when verbal content is absent. For sentences, responses are already high without prosody, but for nonwords, prosody plausibly helps extract some information (perhaps related to sentence structure). 11/

🗣️ 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁 𝟰:
Prosody areas are separable but partly overlap with 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗴𝗲 areas (syntax+semantics). This suggests a strong link between prosodic and verbal processing —> 9/

🧩 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁 𝟯:
Prosody areas are distinct from 𝗺𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲-𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗱 (𝗠𝗗) cognitive regions in both response profiles and fine-grained voxel activation patterns. Thus, prosody responses are not driven by effort or general attention. 8/

🎵 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁 𝟮:
Prosody areas are distinct from 𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵 and 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗲𝗰𝗵 perception areas, differing in both response profiles and fine-grained voxel activation patterns measured using spatial correlations. Thus, prosody sensitivity cannot be explained by basic auditory responses. 7/

📍 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁 𝟭: A bilateral set of temporal+frontal areas responded robustly to prosody in both sentences and nonwords. Interestingly, these areas were also modulated by verbal content (sentences>nonwords). The temporal areas showed generalization to other, natural stimuli. 6/

🎧 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗽𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻:
To remove sentence-level prosody (pitch+timing), we compared naturally produced expressive sentences with versions of the same sentences where each word was recorded separately and spliced. Matched nonword stimuli used the same manipulation. 5/

🎯 We used 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗠𝗥𝗜 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. 51 participants completed tasks targeting prosody, pitch, speech, general attention, language, and social perception—allowing direct comparisons within individuals. 4/

🧠𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻?
Are there areas specialized for prosody, or is prosodic information handled by other systems—auditory pitch/speech areas, cognitive control areas, the language network (Fedorenko et al. 2024), or social perception areas? 2/