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Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2009) 21 (11): 2121–2128.
Published: 01 November 2009
Abstract
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In order to understand how emotional state influences the listener's physiological response to speech, subjects looked at emotion-evoking pictures while 32-channel EEG evoked responses (ERPs) to an unchanging auditory stimulus (“danny”) were collected. The pictures were selected from the International Affective Picture System database. They were rated by participants and differed in valence (positive, negative, neutral), but not in dominance and arousal. Effects of viewing negative emotion pictures were seen as early as 20 msec ( p = .006). An analysis of the global field power highlighted a time period of interest (30.4–129.0 msec) where the effects of emotion are likely to be the most robust. At the cortical level, the responses differed significantly depending on the valence ratings the subjects provided for the visual stimuli, which divided them into the high valence intensity group and the low valence intensity group. The high valence intensity group exhibited a clear divergent bivalent effect of emotion (ERPs at Cz during viewing neutral pictures subtracted from ERPs during viewing positive or negative pictures) in the time period of interest ( r Φ = .534, p < .01). Moreover, group differences emerged in the pattern of global activation during this time period. Although both groups demonstrated a significant effect of emotion (ANOVA, p = .004 and .006, low valence intensity and high valence intensity, respectively), the high valence intensity group exhibited a much larger effect. Whereas the low valence intensity group exhibited its smaller effect predominantly in frontal areas, the larger effect in the high valence intensity group was found globally, especially in the left temporal areas, with the largest divergent bivalent effects (ANOVA, p < .00001) in high valence intensity subjects around the midline. Thus, divergent bivalent effects were observed between 30 and 130 msec, and were dependent on the subject's subjective state, whereas the effects at 20 msec were evident only for negative emotion, independent of the subject's behavioral responses. Taken together, it appears that emotion can affect auditory function early in the sensory processing stream.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (1995) 7 (1): 25–32.
Published: 01 January 1995
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A passively elicited cortical potential that reflects the brain's discrimination of small acoustic contrasts was measured in response to two slightly different speech stimuli in adult human subjects. Behavioral training in the discrimination of those speech stimuli resulted in a significant change in the duration and magnitude of the cortical potential. The results demonstrate that listening training can change the neurophysiologic responses of the central auditory system to just-perceptible differences in speech.