Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany.
Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology, University of Hamburg, Germany.
Brain Res. 2020 Jul 15;1739:146819. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2020.146819. Epub 2020 Apr 3.
The question whether spatial selective attention is necessary in order to process vocal affective prosody has been controversially discussed in sighted individuals: whereas some studies argue that attention is required in order to process emotions, other studies conclude that vocal prosody can be processed even outside the focus of spatial selective attention. Here, we asked whether spatial selective attention is necessary for the processing of affective prosodies after visual deprivation from birth. For this purpose, pseudowords spoken in happy, neutral, fearful or threatening prosodies were presented at the left or right loudspeaker. Congenitally blind individuals (N = 8) and sighted controls (N = 13) had to attend to one of the loudspeakers and detect rare pseudowords presented at the attended loudspeaker during EEG recording. Emotional prosody of the syllables was task-irrelevant. Blind individuals outperformed sighted controls by being more efficient in detecting deviant syllables at the attended loudspeaker. A higher auditory N1 amplitude was observed in blind individuals compared to sighted controls. Additionally, sighted controls showed enhanced attention-related ERP amplitudes in response to fearful and threatening voices during the time range of the N1. By contrast, blind individuals revealed enhanced ERP amplitudes in attended relative to unattended locations irrespective of the affective valence in all time windows (110-350 ms). These effects were mainly observed at posterior electrodes. The results provide evidence for "emotion-general" auditory spatial selective attention effects in congenitally blind individuals and suggest a potential reorganization of the voice processing brain system following visual deprivation from birth.
空间选择性注意是否是处理言语情感韵律所必需的,这个问题在有视力的个体中存在争议:一些研究认为注意是处理情绪所必需的,而其他研究则得出结论,即使在空间选择性注意的焦点之外,言语韵律也可以被处理。在这里,我们想知道在出生后就失明的情况下,空间选择性注意是否对情感韵律的处理是必要的。为此,以快乐、中性、恐惧或威胁的韵律说出的伪词被呈现给左或右扬声器。先天性失明者(N=8)和有视力的对照组(N=13)必须将注意力集中在一个扬声器上,并在 EEG 记录期间检测到在被注意的扬声器上呈现的罕见伪词。音节的情感韵律与任务无关。与有视力的对照组相比,失明者在检测到被注意的扬声器上的偏差音节时效率更高。与有视力的对照组相比,失明者的听觉 N1 振幅更高。此外,在 N1 的时间范围内,有视力的对照组在听到恐惧和威胁的声音时会表现出增强的与注意力相关的 ERP 振幅。相比之下,失明者在所有时间窗口(110-350ms)中,在注意到的位置相对于未注意到的位置都会表现出增强的 ERP 振幅,无论情感效价如何。这些效应主要在后部电极上观察到。研究结果为先天性失明者存在“情感通用”听觉空间选择性注意效应提供了证据,并表明在出生后就失明的情况下,声音处理大脑系统可能会发生潜在的重组。