Neural decoding of discriminative auditory object features depends on their socio-affective valence

Frühholz, S., van der Zwaag, W., Saenz, M., Belin, P., Schobert, A.-K., Vuilleumier, P. and Grandjean, D. (2016) Neural decoding of discriminative auditory object features depends on their socio-affective valence. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 11(10), pp. 1638-1649. (doi: 10.1093/scan/nsw066) (PMID:27217117) (PMCID:PMC5040907)

Abstract

Human voices consist of specific patterns of acoustic features that are considerably enhanced during affective vocalizations. These acoustic features are presumably used by listeners to accurately discriminate between acoustically or emotionally similar vocalizations. Here we used high-field 7T functional magnetic resonance imaging in human listeners together with a so-called experimental ‘feature elimination approach’ to investigate neural decoding of three important voice features of two affective valence categories (i.e. aggressive and joyful vocalizations). We found a valence-dependent sensitivity to vocal pitch (f0) dynamics and to spectral high-frequency cues already at the level of the auditory thalamus. Furthermore, pitch dynamics and harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR) showed overlapping, but again valence-dependent sensitivity in tonotopic cortical fields during the neural decoding of aggressive and joyful vocalizations, respectively. For joyful vocalizations we also revealed sensitivity in the inferior frontal cortex (IFC) to the HNR and pitch dynamics. The data thus indicate that several auditory regions were sensitive to multiple, rather than single, discriminative voice features. Furthermore, some regions partly showed a valence-dependent hypersensitivity to certain features, such as pitch dynamic sensitivity in core auditory regions and in the IFC for aggressive vocalizations, and sensitivity to high-frequency cues in auditory belt and parabelt regions for joyful vocalizations.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: SF and DG were supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF 105314_124572/1 and 105314_146559/1) and by the NCCR Affective Sciences at the University of Geneva (51NF40-104897).
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Belin, Professor Pascal
• Authors: Frühholz, S., van der Zwaag, W., Saenz, M., Belin, P., Schobert, A.-K., Vuilleumier, P., and Grandjean, D.
• College/School: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Psychology & Neuroscience
• Journal Name: Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• ISSN: 1749-5016
• ISSN (Online): 1749-5024
• Published Online: 14 May 2016
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2016 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 11(10):1638-1649
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License