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Temporal lobe regions engaged during normal speech comprehension
Crinion JT, Lambon-Ralph MA, Warburton EA, Howard D, Wise RJ.. Brain : a journal of neurology, 2003-05-01
Topic: Risk, prevention and care in population studies
Processing of speech is obligatory. Thus, during normal speech comprehension, the listener is aware of the overall meaning of the speaker's utterance without the need to direct attention to individual linguistic and paralinguistic (intonational, prosodic, etc.) features contained within the speech signal. However, most functional neuroimaging studies of speech perception have used metalinguistic tasks that required the subjects to attend to specific features of the stimuli. Such tasks have demanded a forced-choice decision and a motor response from the subjects, which will engage frontal systems and may include unpredictable top-down modulation of the signals observed in one or more of the temporal lobe neural systems engaged during speech perception. This study contrasted the implicit comprehension of simple narrative speech with listening to reversed versions of the narratives: the latter are as acoustically complex as speech but are unintelligible in terms of both linguistic and paralinguistic information. The result demonstrated that normal comprehension, free of task demands that do not form part of everyday discourse, engages regions distributed between the two temporal lobes, more widely on the left. In particular, comprehension is dependent on anterolateral and ventral left temporal regions, as suggested by observations on patients with semantic dementia, as well as posterior regions described in studies on aphasic stroke patients. The only frontal contribution was confined to the ventrolateral left prefrontal cortex, compatible with observations that comprehension of simple speech is preserved in patients with left posterior frontal infarction.
Key findings
- Thus, during normal speech comprehension, the listener is aware of the overall meaning of the speaker's utterance without the need to direct attention to individual linguistic and paralinguistic (intonational, prosodic, etc.) features contained within the speech signal.
- The result demonstrated that normal comprehension, free of task demands that do not form part of everyday discourse, engages regions distributed between the two temporal lobes, more widely on the left.
Why it matters
This study looked at which brain areas are active during normal speech comprehension, not at any treatment or prevention of Alzheimer's disease. It found that understanding speech depends on regions in both temporal lobes, more so on the left, but it did not test any therapy or cure.
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Study details
- Evidence strengthLow
How this study scored 45/100
Published in a leading specialty journal. Scored zero for study design, sample size, effect reported, studied in people and randomised / blinded because the record does not state it.
| Component | Points | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Journal tier | 9 / 10 | Tier 2 — leading specialty journal (Brain : a journal of neurology) |
| Journal's citation record | 4 / 4 | Brain: journal h-index 503 (OpenAlex, 2026-10-29) |
| Study design | 0 / 12 | No study design recorded — scores zero, not guessed (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Strength of evidence | 1 / 5 | Rated “low” in our summary |
| Peer-review validation | 10 / 10 | Peer-reviewed. Published as an article in a named peer-reviewed journal. |
| How recent | 1 / 5 | 2003 — older than 20 years, still counted |
| Sample size | 0 / 4 | Participant count not stated — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Effect reported | 0 / 3 | No effect size reported — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Studied in people | 0 / 3 | Not stated whether this was studied in people — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Randomised / blinded | 0 / 2 | No randomisation or blinding stated — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Times cited | 5 / 7 | Cited 262 times (OpenAlex, 2026-10-10) |
| Citations per year | 3 / 5 | 10.5 citations a year over 25 year(s) since 2003 |
| Impact for its field and year | 3 / 6 | Cited 8.0× the average for papers of its field and year (OpenAlex FWCI) |
| Cited by studies here | 1 / 6 | Cited by 1 other studies in this library |
| Still being cited | 2 / 4 | Cited 15 times in 2024–2026 (2026 still in progress; OpenAlex) |
| Senior author's track record | 1 / 4 | Last-listed author Richard J. S. Wise: h-index 14 (OpenAlex, whole career) |
| Institution's track record | 1 / 3 | University of Manchester: institution h-index 1,304 (OpenAlex) |
| Multi-centre collaboration | 2 / 3 | OpenAlex lists 4 institution(s) in 1 country |
| Indexed in PubMed | 2 / 2 | Indexed in PubMed (PMID 12690058) |
| Free to read | 0 / 2 | Behind a paywall — scores zero |
| Total | 45 / 100 | — |
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Read the original
Full text: free to read — OpenAlex lists this copy as free to read: the link above (checked 6 Feb 1020).
Cite this study APA, Vancouver, BibTeX · download .bib or .ris
Built from the record alzhub holds for this paper, not looked up. Volume, issue and page numbers are not held in the record. Check the citation against the original before you use it.
APA 7th
Crinion, J. T., Lambon-Ralph, M. A., Warburton, E. A., Howard, D., & Wise, R. J. (2003). Temporal lobe regions engaged during normal speech comprehension. Brain : a journal of neurology. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awg104
Vancouver
Crinion JT, Lambon-Ralph MA, Warburton EA, Howard D, Wise RJ. Temporal lobe regions engaged during normal speech comprehension. Brain : a journal of neurology. 2003. doi:10.1093/brain/awg104. PMID: 12690058.
BibTeX
@article{crinion2003-12690058,
author = {Crinion, J. T. and Lambon-Ralph, M. A. and Warburton, E. A. and Howard, D. and Wise, R. J.},
title = {{Temporal lobe regions engaged during normal speech comprehension}},
journal = {Brain : a journal of neurology},
year = {2003},
doi = {10.1093/brain/awg104},
pmid = {12690058},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awg104}
}
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