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Beyond the right hemisphere: brain mechanisms mediating vocal emotional processing
Annett Schirmer1, Sonja A Kotz
1Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA. schirmer@uga.edu
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
|December 3, 2005
Summary
Understanding emotions from voice involves a multi-step process across both brain hemispheres. This vocal emotional comprehension relies on sensory, cognitive, and emotional brain systems, challenging older right-hemisphere theories.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Auditory Perception
- Emotion Recognition
Background:
- Vocal emotion recognition is crucial for social interaction.
- Previous research suggested right-hemisphere dominance, but neuroimaging data is inconsistent.
- Brain lesion studies indicated specialized vocal processing in the right hemisphere.
Purpose of the Study:
- To reconcile conflicting findings on the neural basis of vocal emotional comprehension.
- To investigate the processing chain involved in understanding emotions from voice.
- To determine if vocal emotional comprehension is lateralized or bilateral.
Main Methods:
- Review of neuroimaging studies on vocal emotional processing.
- Analysis of brain lesion data related to vocal emotion recognition.
- Conceptual integration of auditory, cognitive, and emotional brain networks.
Main Results:
- Vocal emotional comprehension is not solely a right-hemisphere function.
- A multi-step processing chain is identified, starting in the auditory pathway.
- Neural representations for vocal emotion processing are distributed bilaterally.
Conclusions:
- Vocal emotional comprehension involves bilateral neural mechanisms.
- Processing extends from auditory areas to cognitive and emotional brain regions.
- A revised model highlights distributed sensory, cognitive, and emotional systems.