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What rhythmic perception and amusia can tell us about vocal social communication in schizophrenia

Background Perceiving social intent throughvocal intonation is impaired in schizophrenia; thisdysprosodia partly arisingfrom impaired pitch perception.Individuals with amusia (tone-deafness) are insensitive to pitch change andalso demonstrate prosody deficits. Sensitivity to rhythm is reduced in amusia when tonal sequences contain pitch changes (polytonic), but is normal for monotonic sequences, suggesting perceptual impairment originates at a secondary processing stage where pitch- and time-relatedcues are yoked. Here, we sought to ascertain: 1) whether schizophreniapatients demonstrate rhythmic deficits, 2) whether suchdeficits are restricted to polytonic sequences, and 3) how pitch and rhythm perception relate to prosodic processing. Methods Seventy-sixparticipants (33 schizophrenia) completed tasks assessing pitch and prosody perception, as well as monotonic and polytonic rhythmic perception. Results Increasing tone-deafness correlated with pitch-dependent rhythm detection impairments. Pitch and prosody correlated across all participants. Schizophreniapatients displayed basic time and pitch deficits. Correlations and path analyses indicated prosodic processing is an associatedfunction of pitch and pitch-dependent rhythm perception,with pure temporal processing playing an indirect role.In schizophrenia, deficits in monotonic and polytonic rhythmic perception did not contribute to prosodic processing dysfunction, and montonic rhythmic dysfunction and pitch perception did not covary. Conclusions Exploring similarities between amusia and schizophrenia focused our characterization of prosodic processing as the function of sub-processes reflecting pitch and time perception,whichare prerequisite for prosodic processing. The uniqueness of dysprosodia in schizophrenia relative to other illnesses may be measured by idiosyncrasy in the pattern and magnitude of the sub-process task relationships.