An area of the brain called Heschl’s gyrus — long known for handling early auditory processing — plays a far greater role in interpreting speech than previously understood. It helps interpret the meaning behind subtle changes in pitch, tone, and emphasis into meaningful information, according to a recent study published in the journal Nature Communications.
Scientists had long thought that deciphering those qualities — collectively known as prosody — happened in the superior temporal gyrus, an area of the brain associated with speech perception. But experiments that monitored epileptic patients’ brains now challenge those assumptions.
