Dataset Information

The way you say it, the way I feel it: emotional word processing in accented speech.

ABSTRACT: The present study examined whether processing words with affective connotations in a listener's native language may be modulated by accented speech. To address this question, we used the Event Related Potential (ERP) technique and recorded the cerebral activity of Spanish native listeners, who performed a semantic categorization task, while listening to positive, negative and neutral words produced in standard Spanish or in four foreign accents. The behavioral results yielded longer latencies for emotional than for neutral words in both native and foreign-accented speech, with no difference between positive and negative words. The electrophysiological results replicated previous findings from the emotional language literature, with the amplitude of the Late Positive Complex (LPC), associated with emotional language processing, being larger (more positive) for emotional than for neutral words at posterior scalp sites. Interestingly, foreign-accented speech was found to interfere with the processing of positive valence and go along with a negativity bias, possibly suggesting heightened attention to negative words. The manipulation employed in the present study provides an interesting perspective on the effects of accented speech on processing affective-laden information. It shows that higher order semantic processes that involve emotion-related aspects are sensitive to a speaker's accent.

SUBMITTER: Hatzidaki A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4376116 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

The way you say it, the way I feel it: emotional word processing in accented speech.

Hatzidaki Anna A Baus Cristina C Costa Albert A

Frontiers in psychology 20150327

The present study examined whether processing words with affective connotations in a listener's native language may be modulated by accented speech. To address this question, we used the Event Related Potential (ERP) technique and recorded the cerebral activity of Spanish native listeners, who performed a semantic categorization task, while listening to positive, negative and neutral words produced in standard Spanish or in four foreign accents. The behavioral results yielded longer latencies fo ...[more]

PMID: 25870577

Similar Datasets

Project description:ObjectiveAccording to Panksepp's hierarchical emotion model, emotion processing relies on three functionally and neuroanatomically distinct levels. These levels comprise subcortical networks (primary level), the limbic system (secondary level), and the neocortex (tertiary level) and are suggested to serve differential emotional processing. We aimed to validate and extend previous evidence of discrete and dimensional emotion processing in patient with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME).MethodsWe recorded brain activity of patients with JME and healthy controls in response to lexical decisions to words reflecting the discrete emotion fear and the affective dimension negativity previously suggested to rely on different brain regions and to reflect different levels of processing. In all study participants, we tested verbal cognitive functions, as well as the relationship of psychiatric conditions, seizure types and duration of epilepsy and emotional word processing.ResultsIn support of the hierarchical emotion model, we found an interaction of discrete emotion and affective dimensional processing in the right amygdala likely to reflect secondary level processing. Brain activity related to affective dimensional processing was found in the right inferior frontal gyrus and is suggested to reflect tertiary level processing. Psychiatric conditions, type of seizure nor mono- vs. polytherapy and duration of epilepsy within patients did not have any effect on the processing of emotional words. In addition, no differences in brain activity or response times between patients and controls were observed, despite neuropsychological testing revealed slightly decreased verbal intelligence, verbal fluency and reading speed in patients with JME.SignificanceThese results were interpreted to be in line with the hierarchical emotion model and to highlight the amygdala's role in processing biologically relevant stimuli, as well as to suggest a semantic foundation of affective dimensional processing in prefrontal cortex. A lack of differences in brain activity of patients with JME and healthy controls in response to the emotional content of words could point to unaffected implicit emotion processing in patients with JME.

Project description:Previous processing studies have shown that constituents that are prosodically marked as focus lead to an activation of alternatives. We investigate the processing of constituents that are prosodically marked as contrastive topics. In German, contrastive topics are prosodically realized by prenuclear L∗+H accents. Our study tests (a) whether prenuclear accents (as opposed to nuclear accents) are able to activate contrastive alternatives, (b) whether they do this in the same way as constituents prosodically marked as focus with nuclear accents do, which is important for semantic modeling, and (c) whether the activation of alternatives is caused by pitch accent type (prenuclear L∗+H as contrastive accent vs. prenuclear L+H∗ as non-contrastive accent) or by differences in F0-excursion (related to prominence). We conducted two visual-world eye-tracking studies, in which German listeners heard declarative utterances (e.g., The swimmer wanted to put on flappers) and watched displays that depicted four printed words: one that was a contrastive alternative to the subject noun (e.g., diver), one that was non-contrastively related to it (e.g., sports), the object (e.g., flappers), which had to be clicked, and an unrelated distractor. Experiment 1 presented participants with two naturally produced intonation conditions, a broad focus control condition with a prenuclear L+H∗ accent on the subject and a contrastive topic condition with a prenuclear L∗+H accent. The results showed that participants fixated more on the contrastive alternative when the subject was produced with an L∗+H accent, with the same effect size and timing as reported for focus constituents. Experiment 2 resynthesized the stimuli so that peak height and F0-excursion were the same across intonation conditions. The effect was the same, but the time course was slightly later. Our results suggest that prenuclear L∗+H immediately leads to the activation of alternatives during online processing, and that the F0-excursion of the accent lends little. The results are discussed with regard to the processing of contrastive focus accents and theories of contrastive topic.

Dataset Information

The way you say it, the way I feel it: emotional word processing in accented speech.

Publications

The way you say it, the way I feel it: emotional word processing in accented speech.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets