Detecting the sound of feelings: An ERP investigation of vocal emotion perception

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Detecting the sound of feelings: An ERP investigation of vocal emotion perception Christopher Sufani1*, Jacqueline A. Rushby1 and Skye McDonald1 1 University of New South Wales, School of Psychology, Australia Aims: In speech, an individual’s tone of voice modulates systematically to signal their emotional state and intentions. Hence the accurate perception of tone in voice plays a critical role in everyday psychosocial functioning. Using an oddball paradigm, the current study investigated event-related potential (ERP) correlates of acoustic analysis (100ms), emotional salience detection (200 ms) and cognitive evaluation (300-500 ms) of emotional voices, as proposed by Schirmer & Kotz (2006). Method: In the oddball task, 34 undergraduate psychology students (18 females, 20.0 years old) were fitted with EEG caps and told to mouse-click in response to rare auditory presentation of emotionally vocalised words. Participants completed two blocks of the oddball task, each consisting of words spoken in neutral (300), happy (25), angry (25) and disgusted (25) tones. Behavioural, responses and peak-amplitudes differences to emotional tones at 100, 200, and 300-500 ms were analysed. Results: The task elicited P1 (50-150 ms), N2 (150-250 ms), P3 (250-350 ms) and N3 (300-45 0ms) components. Rare emotional tones in comparison to frequent neutral tones elicited greater P1, N2 and N3 peak-amplitudes. Moreover, both N2 and N3 components elicited greater peak-amplitudes at right central regions in response to negative (angry/disgust) compared to positive tones. P3 however, elicited greater P3 peak-amplitudes to neutral tones. Behaviourally, participants were significantly better at detecting negative tones with significantly faster response times to angry tones. Conclusions: Given the early (100-200 ms) peak-amplitude differences between neutral and emotional tones, the P1 and N2 components are likely reflect early acoustic analysis and emotional salience detection processes. Differences in the topographical distribution of N3 may reflect a distinction in the neural mechanisms underlying the cognitive evaluation of positively and negatively valence tones. P3 reflected inhibitory processes associated with the nature of the task. Keywords: vocal emotion perception, Event-related potentials, oddball paradigm, P1, N2, P3, N3 Conference: ASP2013 - 23rd Annual meeting of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology, Wollongong, Australia, 20 Nov - 22 Nov, 2013. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation Topic: Perception Citation: Sufani C, Rushby JA and McDonald S (2013). Detecting the sound of feelings: An ERP investigation of vocal emotion perception. Conference Abstract: ASP2013 - 23rd Annual meeting of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2013.213.00013 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 25 Oct 2013; Published Online: 05 Nov 2013. * Correspondence: Mr. Christopher Sufani, University of New South Wales, School of Psychology, Sydney, Australia, christopher.sufani@gmail.com Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Christopher Sufani Jacqueline A Rushby Skye McDonald Google Christopher Sufani Jacqueline A Rushby Skye McDonald Google Scholar Christopher Sufani Jacqueline A Rushby Skye McDonald PubMed Christopher Sufani Jacqueline A Rushby Skye McDonald Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.