Jenny Crinion|Matthew A. Lambon Ralph|Elizabeth A. Warburton|David Howard|Richard J. S. Wise
Temporal lobe regions engaged during normal speech comprehension
Hammersmith Hospital
processing speech obligatory thus normal speech comprehension listener aware overall meaning speakers utterance without need direct attention individual linguistic paralinguistic intonational prosodic etc features contained within speech signal however functional neuroimaging studies speech perception used metalinguistic tasks required subjects attend specific features stimuli tasks demanded forcedchoice decision motor response subjects engage frontal systems may include unpredictable topdown modulation signals observed one temporal lobe neural systems engaged speech perception study contrasted implicit comprehension simple narrative speech listening reversed versions narratives latter acoustically complex speech unintelligible terms linguistic paralinguistic information result demonstrated normal comprehension free task demands form part everyday discourse engages regions distributed two temporal lobes widely left particular comprehension dependent anterolateral ventral left temporal regions suggested observations patients semantic dementia well posterior regions described studies aphasic stroke patients frontal contribution confined ventrolateral left prefrontal cortex compatible observations comprehension simple speech preserved patients left posterior frontal infarction