Prosody and Brain Lateralization

Abstract

In rereading the initial publications^1-3in which my colleagues and I first began to formulate our ideas and used consequently imprecise terminology, I can certainly appreciate the suggestion by Ryalls that some confusion could, and obviously did, arise regarding whether we endorsed a "strong" or a "weak" version of prosodic lateralization. However, if one follows carefully the evolution of the clinical studies, it is quite clear that our intention was never to endorse a strong theory, especially since Monrad-Krohn⁴had described dysprosody ("foreign accent" syndrome) as a disorder encountered in the recovery phases of a Broca-type aphasia following left anterior sylvian injury and emphasized that the disorder did not affect his patient's ability to carry a tune or project emotion in the voice, which was in distinct contrast to the patients we had described. It should also be pointed out that in the original article I coauthored