Paulmann Silke, Pell Marc D, Kotz Sonja A
Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK.
Brain Res. 2009 Oct 27;1295:159-69. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2009.07.102. Epub 2009 Aug 4.
There is evidence from neuroimaging and clinical studies that functionally link the basal ganglia to emotional speech processes. However, in most previous studies, explicit tasks were administered. Thus, the underlying mechanisms substantiating emotional speech are not separated from possibly process-related task effects. Therefore, the current study tested emotional speech processing in an event-related potential (ERP) experiment using an implicit emotional processing task (probe verification). The interactive time course of emotional prosody in the context of emotional semantics was investigated using a cross-splicing method. As previously demonstrated, combined prosodic and semantic expectancy violations elicit N400-like negativities irrespective of emotional categories in healthy listeners. In contrast, basal ganglia patients show this negativity only for the emotions of happiness and anger, but not for fear or disgust. The current data serve as first evidence that lesions within the left basal ganglia affect the comparative online processing of fear and disgust prosody and semantics. Furthermore, the data imply that previously reported emotional speech recognition deficits in basal ganglia patients may be due to misaligned processing of emotional prosody and semantics.
神经影像学和临床研究的证据表明，基底神经节与情感言语过程存在功能联系。然而，在大多数先前的研究中，采用的是明确的任务。因此，证实情感言语的潜在机制并未与可能与过程相关的任务效应区分开来。所以，本研究在一项事件相关电位（ERP）实验中，使用内隐情感加工任务（探测验证）来测试情感言语加工。采用交叉拼接法研究了情感语义背景下情感韵律的交互时间进程。如先前所示，韵律和语义预期的联合违背会引发类似N400的负波，在健康听众中与情感类别无关。相比之下，基底神经节患者仅在快乐和愤怒情绪时出现这种负波，恐惧或厌恶情绪时则不会。当前数据首次证明，左侧基底神经节的损伤会影响恐惧和厌恶韵律及语义的在线比较加工。此外，数据表明，先前报道的基底神经节患者情感言语识别缺陷可能是由于情感韵律和语义的加工失调所致。
