More than accuracy: Nonverbal dialects modulate the time course of vocal emotion recognition across cultures

Using a gating paradigm, this study investigated the nature of the in-group advantage in vocal emotion recognition by comparing 2 distinct cultures. Pseudoutterances conveying 4 basic emotions, expressed in English and Hindi, were presented to English and Hindi listeners. In addition to hearing full utterances, each stimulus was gated from its onset to construct 5 processing intervals to pinpoint when the in-group advantage emerges, and whether this differs when listening to a foreign language (English participants judging Hindi) or a second language (Hindi participants judging English). An index of the mean emotion identification point for each group and unbiased measures of accuracy at each time point was calculated. Results showed that in each language condition, native listeners were faster and more accurate than non-native listeners to recognize emotions. The in-group advantage emerged in both conditions after processing 400 ms to 500 ms of acoustic information. In the bilingual Hindi group, greater oral proficiency in English predicted faster and more accurate recognition of English emotional expressions. Consistent with dialect theory, our findings provide new evidence that nonverbal dialects impede both the accuracy and the efficiency of vocal emotion processing in cross-cultural settings, even when individuals are highly proficient in the out-group target language.