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Valence-specific laterality effects in vocal emotion: interactions with stimulus type, blocking and sex
Astrid Schepman1, Paul Rodway, Pauline Geddes
1Department of Psychology, University of Chester, Parkgate Road, Chester, Cheshire CH1 4BJ, UK. a.schepman@chester.ac.uk
Brain and Cognition
|April 7, 2012
Summary
Valence-specific laterality effects in emotion perception are not universal. This study found these effects in vocal emotions only under specific conditions, like blocked presentation of original stimuli, suggesting context dependency.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychology
- Auditory Perception
Background:
- Facial emotion perception often shows valence-specific laterality effects (e.g., positive emotions processed in one hemisphere, negative in the other).
- Such effects are less consistently found in vocal emotion perception, raising questions about generalizability.
- Previous research suggests potential influencing factors like stimulus type, presentation method, and listener characteristics.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether valence-specific laterality effects extend to the perception of vocal emotions.
- To examine if these effects are influenced by blocked emotion presentation, stimulus naturalness (original vs. morphed), or listener sex.
- To clarify the conditions under which laterality effects manifest in auditory emotion processing.
Main Methods:
- A dichotic listening study was conducted using happy and sad vocal sentences, paired with neutral controls.
- Participants performed an emotion localization task, identifying the emotion of presented vocal stimuli.
- Stimuli were presented dichotically, with blocked presentation of emotion conditions, and both original and morphed vocal recordings were used.
Main Results:
- A valence-specific laterality effect was observed when emotion conditions were presented in blocks, but only for original (natural) vocal stimuli, not morphed ones.
- A significant interaction between laterality effects and listener sex was also identified.
- The findings indicate that laterality effects in vocal emotion perception are context-dependent.
Conclusions:
- The valence-specific laterality hypothesis is supported for vocal emotions, but only under specific conditions, such as blocked presentation of naturalistic stimuli.
- Factors like stimulus naturalness and listener sex modulate these laterality effects.
- Further research is needed to explore the attentional or experiential mechanisms underlying these observed modulations in auditory emotion processing.
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