Cortical processing of discrete prosodic patterns in continuous speech

G. Nike Gnanateja, Kyle Rupp, Fernando Llanos, Jasmine Hect, James S. German, Tobias Teichert, Taylor J. Abel () and Bharath Chandrasekaran ()
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G. Nike Gnanateja: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Kyle Rupp: University of Pittsburgh
Fernando Llanos: The University of Texas at Austin
Jasmine Hect: University of Pittsburgh
James S. German: Aix-Marseille University, CNRS, LPL
Tobias Teichert: University of Pittsburgh
Taylor J. Abel: University of Pittsburgh
Bharath Chandrasekaran: University of Pittsburgh

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Abstract Prosody has a vital function in speech, structuring a speaker’s intended message for the listener. The superior temporal gyrus (STG) is considered a critical hub for prosody, but the role of earlier auditory regions like Heschl’s gyrus (HG), associated with pitch processing, remains unclear. Using intracerebral recordings in humans and non-human primate models, we investigated prosody processing in narrative speech, focusing on pitch accents—abstract phonological units that signal word prominence and communicative intent. In humans, HG encoded pitch accents as abstract representations beyond spectrotemporal features, distinct from segmental speech processing, and outperforms STG in disambiguating pitch accents. Multivariate models confirm HG’s unique representation of pitch accent categories. In the non-human primate, pitch accents were not abstractly encoded, despite robust spectrotemporal processing, highlighting the role of experience in shaping abstract representations. These findings emphasize a key role for the HG in early prosodic abstraction and advance our understanding of human speech processing.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-56779-w

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