1Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of the Ministry of Education, School of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China
2Key Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Psychology in Shaanxi Province, School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an 710062, China
3Key Laboratory of Modern Teaching Technology of the Ministry of Education, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an 710062, China
4Department of Psychology, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
5School of Educational Sciences, Xinyang Normal University, Xinyang 464000, China

Abstract 

Facial and vocal expressions are essential modalities mediating the perception of emotion and social communication. Nonetheless, currently little is known about how emotion perception and its neural substrates differ across facial expression and vocal prosody. To clarify this issue, functional MRI scans were acquired in Study 1, in which participants were asked to discriminate the valence of emotional expression (angry, happy or neutral) from facial, vocal, or bimodal stimuli. In Study 2, we used an affective priming task (unimodal materials as primers and bimodal materials as target) and participants were asked to rate the intensity, valence, and arousal of the targets. Study 1 showed higher accuracy and shorter response latencies in the facial than in the vocal modality for a happy expression. Whole-brain analysis showed enhanced activation during facial compared to vocal emotions in the inferior temporal-occipital regions. Region of interest analysis showed a higher percentage signal change for facial than for vocal anger in the superior temporal sulcus. Study 2 showed that facial relative to vocal priming of anger had a greater influence on perceived emotion for bimodal targets, irrespective of the target valence. These findings suggest that facial expression is associated with enhanced emotion perception compared to equivalent vocal prosodies.

Keywords

fMRI; Emotion perception; Facial expression; Vocal prosody; Modality

[SpringerLink]