Investigation of pitch and rhythm processing in aphasia

An auditory discrimination task was used to determine pitch and rhythmic processing abilities in people with aphasia as well as to further investigate these abilities in healthy controls. Discrimination abilities for tone and speech processing were also examined. The aphasia group was outperformed by controls in all aspects of the auditory discrimination task, though the groups did not differ in visual discrimination or non-verbal working memory abilities. The results of this study suggest impoverished rhythmic and speech processing abilities in aphasia in addition to relatively intact pitch processing abilities. Performance in discriminating tone stimuli was dependent on whether they were presented in the context of pitch or rhythm. Significant findings and trends towards significance are discussed in terms of clinical implications as well as the understanding of the lateralization of pitch and rhythm processes in the brain.