Abstract
In verbal communication, not only the meaning of the words convey information, but also the tone of voice (prosody) conveys crucial information about the emotional state and intentions of others. In various studies right frontal and right temporal regions have been found to play a role in emotional prosody perception. Here, we used triple-pulse repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to shed light on the precise time course of involvement of the right anterior superior temporal gyrus and the right fronto-parietal operculum. We hypothesized that information would be processed in the right anterior superior temporal gyrus before being processed in the right fronto-parietal operculum. Right-handed healthy subjects performed an emotional prosody task. During listening to each sentence a triplet of TMS pulses was applied to one of the regions at one of six time points (400–1900 ms). Results showed a significant main effect of Time for right anterior superior temporal gyrus and right fronto-parietal operculum. The largest interference was observed half-way through the sentence. This effect was stronger for withdrawal emotions than for the approach emotion. A further experiment with the inclusion of an active control condition, TMS over the EEG site POz (midline parietal-occipital junction), revealed stronger effects at the fronto-parietal operculum and anterior superior temporal gyrus relative to the active control condition. No evidence was found for sequential processing of emotional prosodic information from right anterior superior temporal gyrus to the right fronto-parietal operculum, but the results revealed more parallel processing. Our results suggest that both right fronto-parietal operculum and right anterior superior temporal gyrus are critical for emotional prosody perception at a relatively late time period after sentence onset. This may reflect that emotional cues can still be ambiguous at the beginning of sentences, but become more apparent half-way through the sentence.
Highlights
Besides the semantic meaning of words, features such as intonation, loudness and accents in speech may convey crucial information about the emotional state of the speaker
To help in reconciling the controversial data from previous patient and imaging studies, we focused on both right fronto-parietal operculum and right anterior superior temporal gyrus in order to investigate their potentially different roles in the process of emotional prosody perception
Reaction times and percentages correct were analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA, in which the factors were Site of stimulation (anterior superior temporal gyrus (STG), frontoparietal operculum (FPO), POz), Time (6 points, varying from 400 to 1900ms, with 300 ms in between) and Emotion
Summary
Besides the semantic meaning of words, features such as intonation, loudness and accents in speech may convey crucial information about the emotional state of the speaker. Imaging and patient studies have yielded discrepant data with respect to lateralization and location of brain regions contributing to the process of emotional prosody perception. Most of these studies show right (inferior or orbital) frontal [3,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13] and right temporal regions [5,7,8,9,11,12,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21]. Others show bilateral frontal [2,3,4,5,6,7,21], left temporal [3,8] and right inferior parietal lobule [4,13] involvement
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