Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz, Baden-Württemberg, Germany,
Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2015 Aug;10(8):1137-43. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsu168. Epub 2015 Feb 3.
Powerful speeches can captivate audiences, whereas weaker speeches fail to engage their listeners. What is happening in the brains of a captivated audience? Here, we assess audience-wide functional brain dynamics during listening to speeches of varying rhetorical quality. The speeches were given by German politicians and evaluated as rhetorically powerful or weak. Listening to each of the speeches induced similar neural response time courses, as measured by inter-subject correlation analysis, in widespread brain regions involved in spoken language processing. Crucially, alignment of the time course across listeners was stronger for rhetorically powerful speeches, especially for bilateral regions of the superior temporal gyri and medial prefrontal cortex. Thus, during powerful speeches, listeners as a group are more coupled to each other, suggesting that powerful speeches are more potent in taking control of the listeners' brain responses. Weaker speeches were processed more heterogeneously, although they still prompted substantially correlated responses. These patterns of coupled neural responses bear resemblance to metaphors of resonance, which are often invoked in discussions of speech impact, and contribute to the literature on auditory attention under natural circumstances. Overall, this approach opens up possibilities for research on the neural mechanisms mediating the reception of entertaining or persuasive messages.
有力的演讲能够吸引听众，而较弱的演讲则无法吸引听众。在被吸引的听众的大脑中究竟发生了什么？在这里，我们评估了在听取不同修辞质量的演讲时听众大脑的整体功能动态。这些演讲由德国政治家发表，并被评估为具有强有力或较弱的修辞。通过跨主体相关性分析，我们发现，在涉及口语处理的广泛大脑区域中，对每一次演讲的聆听都会引起相似的神经反应时程。至关重要的是，在修辞有力的演讲中，听众之间的时间过程的对齐更为紧密，特别是在双侧颞上回和内侧前额叶皮质。因此，在有力的演讲中，听众作为一个整体彼此之间的耦合程度更高，这表明有力的演讲更能控制听众的大脑反应。较弱的演讲虽然仍能引起高度相关的反应，但处理方式却更加多样化。这些耦合的神经反应模式类似于共鸣的隐喻，共鸣在讨论演讲的影响时经常被提及，并为自然环境下听觉注意力的文献做出了贡献。总的来说，这种方法为研究介导接受娱乐或有说服力的信息的神经机制开辟了可能性。
