Scary voices & applauding hands: Rapid and opposing effects of emotional valence revealed by AEPs

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Scary voices & applauding hands: Rapid and opposing effects of emotional valence revealed by AEPs Melanie Aeschlimann1*, J. F. Knebel1, L. Spierer1, S. Clarke1 and Micah M. Murray1, 2, 3 1 Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Switzerland 2 Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Radiology service, Switzerland 3 Center for Biomedical Imaging of Lausanne and Geneva, EEG Brain Mapping Core, Switzerland The emotional information conveyed by sounds is immediately evident upon watching a muted film. However, the neurophysiological mechanisms mediating the emotional processing of sounds remain unresolved. Existing auditory evoked potential (AEP) studies of humans were limited to comparisons between neutral and negative emotions as well as to environmental sounds, excluding non-verbal vocalizations. However, recent psychophysical results have demonstrated that human vocalizations (HV) are a distinct emotional category of environmental sounds (Aeschlimann et al. 2008 Brain Topogr 20:239-48). The present AEP study investigated the spatio-temporal dynamics mediating the emotional processing of two categories of environmental sounds (HV and non-vocalizations; NV) varying in their emotional valences (positive, negative, and neutral). The stimulus battery was controlled in its duration, RMS intensity, spectrogram, and recognition confidence. 16 participants (8 men; 8 women) completed an oddball detection task with sound category. The target category was counterbalanced across blocks of trials and was presented on 1/12th of trials. Electrical neuroimaging analyses of the AEPs were based on distractor trials only. Analyses of the global field power (millisecond-by-millisecond ANOVA) revealed an interaction between factors of category and emotional valence beginning at ~40ms post-stimulus onset (i.e. during the P50 component). Post-hoc ANOVAs with each category, separately, also revealed main effects of valence at this latency. In the case of HV, this followed from a significantly stronger P50 response to negative emotions. By contrast, in the case of NV, this followed from a stronger P50 response to positive emotions. These results suggest that emotional valence may be differentially processed according to the category of the sound source during the initial states of auditory information processing. We discuss these results in terms of a spatio-temporal model of auditory object recognition. Conference: 10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience, Bodrum, Turkey, 1 Sep - 5 Sep, 2008. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Emotional Processing Citation: Aeschlimann M, Knebel JF, Spierer L, Clarke S and Murray MM (2008). Scary voices & applauding hands: Rapid and opposing effects of emotional valence revealed by AEPs. Conference Abstract: 10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.01.204 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: 08 Dec 2008; Published Online: 08 Dec 2008. * Correspondence: Melanie Aeschlimann, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland, Melanie.Aeschlimann@chuv.ch 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 Melanie Aeschlimann J. F Knebel L. Spierer S. Clarke Micah M Murray Google Melanie Aeschlimann J. F Knebel L. Spierer S. Clarke Micah M Murray Google Scholar Melanie Aeschlimann J. F Knebel L. Spierer S. Clarke Micah M Murray PubMed Melanie Aeschlimann J. F Knebel L. Spierer S. Clarke Micah M Murray 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.