Concurrent affective and linguistic prosody with the same emotional valence elicits a late positive ERP response. (29th January 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Zora, Hatice; Rudner, Mary; Montell Magnusson, Anna K.
• Is Part Of: European journal of neuroscience. Volume 51:Number 11(2020)
• Page Start: 2236
• Page End: 2249
• Publication Date: 2020-01-29
• Subjects: electroencephalography -- emotion -- event‐related potential -- language -- prosody; Nervous system -- Periodicals; 612.8
• DOI: 10.1111/ejn.14658
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0953-816X

Abstract

Abstract: Change in linguistic prosody generates a mismatch negativity response (MMN), indicating neural representation of linguistic prosody, while change in affective prosody generates a positive response (P3a), reflecting its motivational salience. However, the neural response to concurrent affective and linguistic prosody is unknown. The present paper investigates the integration of these two prosodic features in the brain by examining the neural response to separate and concurrent processing by electroencephalography (EEG). A spoken pair of Swedish words—[ˈfɑ́ːsɛn] phase and [ˈfɑ̀ːsɛn] damn—that differed in emotional semantics due to linguistic prosody was presented to 16 subjects in an angry and neutral affective prosody using a passive auditory oddball paradigm. Acoustically matched pseudowords—[ˈvɑ́ːsɛm] and [ˈvɑ̀ːsɛm]—were used as controls. Following the constructionist concept of emotions, accentuating the conceptualization of emotions based on language, it was hypothesized that concurrent affective and linguistic prosody with the same valence—angry [ˈfɑ̀ːsɛn] damn—would elicit a unique late EEG signature, reflecting the temporal integration of affective voice with emotional semantics of prosodic origin. In accordance, linguistic prosody elicited an MMN at 300–350 ms, and affective prosody evoked a P3a at 350–400 ms, irrespective of semantics. Beyond these responses, concurrent affective and linguistic prosody evoked a late positive component (LPC) at 820–870 ms in frontal areas, indicating the conceptualization of affective prosody based on linguistic prosody. This study provides evidence that the brain does not only distinguish between these two functions of prosody but also integrates them based on language and experience. Abstract : Prosody—a natural component of all languages—conveys both higher‐order linguistic and lower‐order affective voice cues. Here, the neural response to separate and concurrent linguistic and affective prosody with the same valance (angry) was investigated by electroencephalography (EEG). A late frontal EEG response emerged only with concurrent linguistic and affective prosody, indicating that lower‐ and higher‐order brain activity is integrated for the emotional conceptualization of language.