title: Spatiotemporal frequency characteristics of cerebral oscillations during the perception of fundamental frequency contour changes in one-syllable intonation.
abstract: Accurate perception of fundamental frequency (F0) contour changes in the human voice is important for understanding a speaker's intonation, and consequently also his/her attitude. In this study, we investigated the neural processes involved in the perception of F0 contour changes in the Japanese one-syllable interjection "ne" in 21 native-Japanese listeners. A passive oddball paradigm was applied in which "ne" with a high falling F0 contour, used when urging a reaction from the listener, was randomly presented as a rare deviant among a frequent "ne" syllable with a flat F0 contour (i.e., meaningless intonation). We applied an adaptive spatial filtering method to the neuromagnetic time course recorded by whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) and estimated the spatiotemporal frequency dynamics of event-related cerebral oscillatory changes in the oddball paradigm. Our results demonstrated a significant elevation of beta band event-related desynchronization (ERD) in the right temporal and frontal areas, in time windows from 100 to 300 and from 300 to 500 ms after the onset of deviant stimuli (high falling F0 contour). This is the first study to reveal detailed spatiotemporal frequency characteristics of cerebral oscillations during the perception of intonational (not lexical) F0 contour changes in the human voice. The results further confirmed that the right hemisphere is associated with perception of intonational F0 contour information in the human voice, especially in early time windows.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Neurobiology, Graduate School of Medical Science, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan.
authors.forename: Sanae
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ueno
authors.forename: Eiichi
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Okumura
authors.forename: Gerard B
authors.initials: GB
authors.lastname: Remijn
authors.forename: Yuko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yoshimura
authors.forename: Mitsuru
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kikuchi
authors.forename: Kiyomi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Shitamichi
authors.forename: Kikuko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nagao
authors.forename: Masayuki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mochiduki
authors.forename: Yasuhiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Haruta
authors.forename: Norio
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hayashi
authors.forename: Toshio
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Munesue
authors.forename: Tsunehisa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tsubokawa
authors.forename: Manabu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Oi
authors.forename: Hideo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nakatani
authors.forename: Haruhiro
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Higashida
authors.forename: Yoshio
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Minabe
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015225:Magnetoencephalography; D008297:Male; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014831:Voice