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Language is more than just words. When speaking, a great deal of information is conveyed by the way things are said—by speech prosody—and considerable misunderstandings can arise if these vocal cues are neglected or wrongly interpreted. Dorsal and ventral streams in the left hemisphere are the undisputed neural core of the language faculty. Yet, the manner in which the brain extracts meaning from subtle modulations of voice tone remains unclear. Here, I will integrate previous neurofunctional accounts of language with novel evidence from neuroimaging, brain stimulation and lesion studies to reveal the complex neurocognitive architecture of prosody perception in speech. These data show (i) anatomically and functionally distinct dorsal and ventral streams for prosody in the right hemisphere, (ii) their dynamic interaction with the left hemisphere via the corpus callosum, and (iii) the relevance of social cognition for the extraction of meaning from the prosodic signal. Taken together, this research proposes the interaction of several complementary mechanisms during prosody perception and offers a fresh look on the neural basis of interpersonal communication and mutual understanding.
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