Li Ya, Gu Feng, Zhang Xiliang, Yang Lizhuang, Chen Lijun, Wei Zhengde, Zha Rujing, Wang Ying, Li Xiaoming, Zhou Yifeng, Zhang Xiaochu
CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China.
CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China; Department of Medical Psychology, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui Province, China.
PLoS One. 2014 Apr 11;9(4):e94976. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0094976. eCollection 2014.
Human voice is a gender discriminating cue and is important to mate selection. This study employed electrophysiological recordings to examine whether there is specific cerebral activity when presented with opposite-sex voices as compared to same-sex voices. Male voices and female voices were pseudo-randomly presented to male and female participants. In Experiment 1, participants were instructed to determine the gender of each voice. A late positivity (LP) response around 750 ms after voice onset was elicited by opposite-sex voices, as reflected by a positive deflection of the ERP to opposite-sex voices than that to same-sex voices. This LP response was prominent around parieto-occipital recording sites, and it suggests an opposite-sex specific process, which may reflect emotion- and/or reward-related cerebral activity. In Experiment 2, participants were instructed to press a key when hearing a non-voice pure tone and not give any response when they heard voice stimuli. In this task, no difference were found between the ERP to same-sex voices and that to opposite-sex voices, suggesting that the cerebral activity to opposite-sex voices may disappear without gender-related attention. These results provide significant implications on cognitive mechanisms with regard to opposite-sex specific voice processing.
人类的声音是一种性别区分线索，对配偶选择很重要。本研究采用电生理记录来检查与同性声音相比，当呈现异性声音时是否存在特定的大脑活动。男性声音和女性声音被伪随机地呈现给男性和女性参与者。在实验1中，参与者被要求判断每个声音的性别。声音开始后约750毫秒出现的晚期正波（LP）反应由异性声音引发，这通过ERP对异性声音的正向偏转大于对同性声音的正向偏转得以体现。这种LP反应在顶枕记录部位较为突出，它表明了一个异性特异性过程，这可能反映了与情绪和/或奖励相关的大脑活动。在实验2中，参与者被要求在听到非语音纯音时按键，而在听到语音刺激时不做任何反应。在这个任务中，对同性声音的ERP和对异性声音的ERP之间没有发现差异，这表明在没有与性别相关的注意力时，对异性声音的大脑活动可能会消失。这些结果为关于异性特异性语音处理的认知机制提供了重要启示。
