Most people do tend to use prosody, particularly when talking to babies and pets who may understand the emotion more than the words. But, we vary in how much we use prosody in normal conversation. The researchers found that the subjects who used prosody most often in everyday speech showed the highest levels of activity in Broca’s area and also scored high on empathy measures.
It’s unlikely most of us would hire a salesperson who spoke in a flat monotone, but this work suggests that an individual with a melodic manner of speaking would likely be better able to identify with customers’ emotions. (Note that what the researchers measured wasn’t musical skill or ability to carry a tune, but rather the melodic inflections used in speech.)
