Feng Xinghe, Shi Xinmeng, Hu Zhonghua
Institute of Brain and Psychological Sciences, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, People's Republic of China.
Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, People's Republic of China.
Cogn Emot. 2024 Dec;38(8):1271-1284. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2024.2364037. Epub 2024 Jun 11.
The auditory gaze cueing effect (auditory-GCE) is a faster response to auditory targets at an eye-gaze cue location than at a non-cue location. Previous research has found that auditory-GCE can be influenced by the integration of both gaze direction and emotion conveyed through facial expressions. However, it is unclear whether the emotional information of auditory targets can be cross-modally integrated with gaze direction to affec auditory-GCE. Here, we set neutral faces with different gaze directions as cues and three emotional sounds (fearful, happy, and neutral) as targets to investigate how the emotion of sound target modulates the auditory-GCE. Moreover, we conducted a controlled experiment using arrow cues. The results show that the emotional content of sound targets influences the auditory-GCE but only for those induced by facial cues. Specifically, fearful sounds elicit a significantly larger auditory-GCE compared to happy and neutral sounds, indicating that the emotional content of auditory targets plays a modulating role in the auditory-GCE. Furthermore, this modulation appears to occur only at a higher level of social meaning, involving the integration of emotional information from a sound with social gaze direction, rather than at a lower level, which involves the integration of direction and auditory emotion.
听觉注视线索效应（auditory-GCE）是指对处于注视线索位置的听觉目标的反应比对非线索位置的听觉目标的反应更快。先前的研究发现，听觉-GCE会受到注视方向和通过面部表情传达的情绪两者整合的影响。然而，尚不清楚听觉目标的情绪信息是否能与注视方向进行跨模态整合以影响听觉-GCE。在此，我们设置了具有不同注视方向的中性面孔作为线索，并设置了三种情绪声音（恐惧、快乐和中性）作为目标，以研究声音目标的情绪如何调节听觉-GCE。此外，我们使用箭头线索进行了对照实验。结果表明，声音目标的情绪内容会影响听觉-GCE，但仅针对由面部线索诱发的情况。具体而言，与快乐和中性声音相比，恐惧声音引发的听觉-GCE显著更大，这表明听觉目标的情绪内容在听觉-GCE中起调节作用。此外，这种调节似乎仅发生在更高层次的社会意义上，涉及将声音中的情绪信息与社会注视方向进行整合，而不是发生在较低层次，即涉及方向和听觉情绪的整合。
