Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, German Primate Center Göttingen, Germany ; Biological Psychology, University of Münster Münster, Germany.
Biological Psychology, University of Münster Münster, Germany ; Minerva Group Motor Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Neurological Research Köln, Germany.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2014 Mar 11;8:144. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00144. eCollection 2014.
Authenticity of vocal emotion expression affects emotion recognition and brain activity in the so-called Theory of Mind (ToM) network, which is implied in the ability to explain and predict behavior by attributing mental states to other individuals. Exploiting the variability of the fundamental frequency (F0 contour), which varies more (higher contour) in play-acted expressions than authentic ones, we examined whether contour biases explicit categorization toward a particular authenticity or emotion category. Moreover, we tested whether contour modulates blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) response in the ToM network and explored the role of task as a top-down modulator. The effects of contour on BOLD signal were analyzed by contrasting high and low contour stimuli within two previous fMRI studies that implemented emotion and authenticity rating tasks. Participants preferentially categorized higher contour stimuli as play-acted and lower contour stimuli as sad. Higher contour was found to up-regulate activation task-independently in the primary auditory cortex. Stimulus contour and task were found to interact in a network including medial prefrontal cortex, with an increase in BOLD signal for low-contour stimuli during explicit perception of authenticity and an increase for high-contour stimuli during explicit perception of emotion. Contour-induced BOLD effects appear to be purely stimulus-driven in early auditory and intonation perception, while being strongly task-dependent in regions involved in higher cognition.
真实的情感表达会影响到所谓的“心理理论”（Theory of Mind，ToM）网络中的情绪识别和大脑活动，这暗示了通过将心理状态归因于他人来解释和预测行为的能力。我们利用基频（F0 轮廓）的可变性，即表演表达中的变化比真实表达中的变化更大（更高的轮廓），来检验轮廓是否会使明确的分类偏向于特定的真实性或情绪类别。此外，我们还测试了轮廓是否会调节 ToM 网络中的血氧水平依赖（blood-oxygen-level dependent，BOLD）反应，并探索了任务作为自上而下的调节因素的作用。通过在实施情感和真实性评估任务的两项先前 fMRI 研究中对比高轮廓和低轮廓刺激，分析了轮廓对 BOLD 信号的影响。参与者更倾向于将高轮廓刺激归类为表演性，将低轮廓刺激归类为悲伤。研究发现，高轮廓在初级听觉皮层中独立于任务激活。刺激轮廓和任务被发现在一个包含内侧前额叶皮层的网络中相互作用，在明确感知真实性时，低轮廓刺激的 BOLD 信号增加，而在明确感知情绪时，高轮廓刺激的 BOLD 信号增加。在涉及更高认知的区域中，轮廓引起的 BOLD 效应似乎在早期听觉和语调感知中纯粹是由刺激驱动的，而在任务依赖性方面则很强。
