The Neural Correlates of Emotional Prosody Comprehension: Disentangling Simple from Complex Emotion

Abstract

BackgroundEmotional prosody comprehension (EPC), the ability to interpret another person's feelings by listening to their tone of voice, is crucial for effective social communication. Previous studies assessing the neural correlates of EPC have found inconsistent results, particularly regarding the involvement of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). It remained unclear whether the involvement of the mPFC is linked to an increased demand in socio-cognitive components of EPC such as mental state attribution and if basic perceptual processing of EPC can be performed without the contribution of this region.MethodsfMRI was used to delineate neural activity during the perception of prosodic stimuli conveying simple and complex emotion. Emotional trials in general, as compared to neutral ones, activated a network comprising temporal and lateral frontal brain regions, while complex emotion trials specifically showed an additional involvement of the mPFC, premotor cortex, frontal operculum and left insula.ConclusionThese results indicate that the mPFC and premotor areas might be associated, but are not crucial to EPC. However, the mPFC supports socio-cognitive skills necessary to interpret complex emotion such as inferring mental states. Additionally, the premotor cortex involvement may reflect the participation of the mirror neuron system for prosody processing particularly of complex emotion.

Multiple subregions in superior temporal cortex are differentially sensitive to vocal expressions: A quantitative meta-analysis

“…These emotion-sensitive areas are typically located in the mid-posterior STC. STC activity in response to vocal expressions is a consistent finding across many studies (Bach et al, 2008;Frühholz et al, 2012;Grandjean et al, 2005;Sander et al, 2005), leading to the proposal of a general "emotional voice area" (EVA) located in the STC (Ethofer et al, 2012). The EVA might have a general functional role for the decoding of emotional cues from vocal expressions.…”

“…Furthermore, subregions within this voicesensitive cortex are also more responsive to the emotional than to the neutral tone of a voice (i.e. Bach et al, 2008;Ethofer et al, 2009b;2012;Grandjean et al, 2005;Sander et al, 2005). These emotion-sensitive areas are typically located in the mid-posterior STC.…”

What is the Significance of Leftward Cradling Bias?

“…Several studies support positioning as an important component of the care of both premature and full term infants [31,[33][34][35]48]. Researchers have investigated handedness [39] and other hemispheric lateralization theories related to emotional processing both for the mother [8,9,49] and infant [14,[50][51][52]. The relationship of cradling bias to the neural substrates of face processing have also been a subject of study [19,21,[53][54][55][56][57].…”

“…The primary purpose of those patterns in speech is to communicate emotion or mental state. The responsibility for generation and comprehension of these patterns lies mainly in the right hemisphere of the brain [8][9][10]. Reissland [7] concluded that the leftward cradling actions correlated with the mother's attempts to soothe her baby.…”

A comparative neurological approach to emotional expressions in primate vocalizations

“…The hippocampus is thought to act in conjunction with the amygdala, the amygdala providing the evaluation of the stimulus or the related emotional responses and the hippocampus encoding the relevant memory (Frühholz et al, 2014). However, the hippocampus itself appears to have a role in deciphering emotion valence in the auditory context (Alba-Ferrara et al, 2011;Leitman et al, 2010;Phillips et al, 1998;Wiethoff et al, 2008), albeit potentially occurring during more complex emotional situations than for those involving the amygdala (Alba-Ferrara et al, 2011;Frühholz et al, 2014). Other brain areas that have been connected to emotion processing are found in the temporal, frontal, and prefrontal cortices (Banse and Scherer, 1996;Grandjean et al, 2006).…”