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Pitch underlies activation of the vocal system during affective vocalization.

ABSTRACT: Affective prosody is that aspect of speech that conveys a speaker's emotional state through modulations in various vocal parameters, most prominently pitch. While a large body of research implicates the cingulate vocalization area in controlling affective vocalizations in monkeys, no systematic test of functional homology for this area has yet been reported in humans. In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare brain activations when subjects produced affective vocalizations in the form of exclamations vs non-affective vocalizations with similar pitch contours. We also examined the perception of affective vocalizations by having participants make judgments about either the emotions being conveyed by recorded affective vocalizations or the pitch contours of the same vocalizations. Production of affective vocalizations and matched pitch contours activated a highly overlapping set of brain areas, including the larynx-phonation area of the primary motor cortex and a region of the anterior cingulate cortex that is consistent with the macro-anatomical position of the cingulate vocalization area. This overlap contradicts the dominant view that these areas form two distinct vocal pathways with dissociable functions. Instead, we propose that these brain areas are nodes in a single vocal network, with an emphasis on pitch modulation as a vehicle for affective expression.

SUBMITTER: Belyk M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4927029 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Pitch underlies activation of the vocal system during affective vocalization.

Belyk Michel M Brown Steven S

Social cognitive and affective neuroscience 20150615 7

Affective prosody is that aspect of speech that conveys a speaker's emotional state through modulations in various vocal parameters, most prominently pitch. While a large body of research implicates the cingulate vocalization area in controlling affective vocalizations in monkeys, no systematic test of functional homology for this area has yet been reported in humans. In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare brain activations when subjects produced affective vocali ...[more]

PMID: 26078385

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Project description:Vocal control plays a critical role in smooth social communication. Speakers constantly monitor auditory feedback (AF) and make adjustments when their voices deviate from their intentions. Previous studies have shown that when certain acoustic features of the AF are artificially altered, speakers compensate for this alteration in the opposite direction. However, little is known about how the vocal control system implements compensations for alterations of different acoustic features, and associates them with subjective consciousness. The present study investigated whether compensations for the fundamental frequency (F0), which corresponds to perceived pitch, and formants, which contribute to perceived timbre, can be performed unconsciously and independently. Forty native Japanese speakers received two types of altered AF during vowel production that involved shifts of either only the formant frequencies (formant modification; Fm) or both the pitch and formant frequencies (pitch + formant modification; PFm). For each type, three levels of shift (slight, medium, and severe) in both directions (increase or decrease) were used. After the experiment, participants were tested for whether they had perceived a change in the F0 and/or formants. The results showed that (i) only formants were compensated for in the Fm condition, while both the F0 and formants were compensated for in the PFm condition; (ii) the F0 compensation exhibited greater precision than the formant compensation in PFm; and (iii) compensation occurred even when participants misperceived or could not explicitly perceive the alteration in AF. These findings indicate that non-experts can compensate for both formant and F0 modifications in the AF during vocal production, even when the modifications are not explicitly or correctly perceived, which provides further evidence for a dissociation between conscious perception and action in vocal control. We propose that such unconscious control of voice production may enhance rapid adaptation to changing speech environments and facilitate mutual communication.

Dataset Information

Pitch underlies activation of the vocal system during affective vocalization.

Publications

Pitch underlies activation of the vocal system during affective vocalization.

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