Acoustic analysis of affective prosody during right-sided Wada Test: a within-subjects verification of the right hemisphere's role in language.

A within-subjects study of the affective characteristics of voice was carried out in patients undergoing a Wada Test (WT). All patients became densely aphasic after the left-sided WT and lost the ability to impart affect into speech after the right-sided WT. The affective changes in voice induced by the Wada test were acoustically analyzed by computer-assisted techniques and compared to data obtained pre-Wada and post-Wada. The statistical results, using a one-way analysis of variance for repeated measures, confirmed robustly the current view that the right hemisphere modulates dominantly the affective components of language. The results are also evaluated in light of recent clinical and acoustical data regarding the organization of language in speakers of tone languages, thus, allowing the authors to address issues concerning universal principles of brain-language-behavioral relationships.