The voices of wrath: brain responses to angry prosody in meaningless speech

Nat Neurosci. 2005 Feb;8(2):145-6. doi: 10.1038/nn1392. Epub 2005 Jan 23.

Abstract

We report two functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments showing enhanced responses in human middle superior temporal sulcus for angry relative to neutral prosody. This emotional enhancement was voice specific, unrelated to isolated acoustic amplitude or frequency cues in angry prosody, and distinct from any concomitant task-related attentional modulation. Attention and emotion seem to have separate effects on stimulus processing, reflecting a fundamental principle of human brain organization shared by voice and face perception.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acoustic Stimulation / methods
  • Analysis of Variance
  • Anger / physiology*
  • Attention / physiology*
  • Brain Mapping
  • Facial Expression
  • Functional Laterality
  • Humans
  • Linguistics*
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods
  • Oxygen / blood
  • Space Perception / physiology
  • Speech Acoustics
  • Temporal Lobe / anatomy & histology
  • Temporal Lobe / blood supply
  • Temporal Lobe / physiology*
  • Voice / physiology*

Substances

  • Oxygen