听觉信息掩蔽的亚成分：基于行为和脑成像研究的证明

听觉掩蔽的机制是解决嘈杂声学环境下对特定目标声音进行加工, 即“鸡尾酒会”问题的关键。听觉掩蔽可以分为能量掩蔽和信息掩蔽两种类型。前者是因为目标和掩蔽声音在听觉外周在时间和频率上的重叠所造成的, 而后者被认为是掩蔽声音在听觉中枢和目标声音竞争加工资源所造成的。长久以来, 信息掩蔽一直被当作一种单一成分的现象, 这一概念框架已经成为制约对其机制进行深入研究的一个瓶颈。信息掩蔽中至少包含有知觉信息掩蔽和认知信息掩蔽两种亚成分, 它们源于不同的中枢机制。多个说话人声音掩蔽的条件下, 总体掩蔽量是能量掩蔽、知觉信息掩蔽和认知信息掩蔽等成分总和的结果。操纵掩蔽和目标声音的知觉空间分离、掩蔽声音的可懂度以及掩蔽和目标声音的知觉相似度, 可以实现对两种信息掩蔽亚成分的双重分离。应用功能性核磁共振成像技术可以发现两者有不同的神经机制。     

言语情绪韵律加工的时间进程

有关情绪韵律加工的时间进程,现在的研究采用ERP技术在词汇和句子水平上进行探讨：在词汇水平,韵律情绪信息和语义情绪信息都存在自动加工,前者可在300ms内得以识别,受到性别、注意等因素的调节;在句子水平,语义情绪加工可能“制约”韵律情绪加工,二者具有交互作用。未来研究应进一步探索情绪韵律加工的时间进程以及与其他信息加工的相互时间关系等。     

“鸡尾酒会”环境中的知觉线索的去掩蔽作用

在有多人同时说话的嘈杂环境中,为什么具有正常听力的人能在一定的程度上听懂目标语句？研究这个著名的“鸡尾酒会”问题的一个新进展是将干扰言语的作用区分出了能量掩蔽和信息掩蔽两种成分。与发生在外周系统的能量掩蔽不同,信息掩蔽发生在心理层次并受到认知过程的调节。因此,主观空间分离、与目标语句节奏相关的视觉信号以及对目标语句某些特征的熟悉程度等知觉线索都具有去掩蔽作用。考察可减少信息掩蔽的知觉线索的交互作用及其高级认知调节是今后重要的研究内容     

视觉与听觉情绪信息关系判断中的交互作用

通过要求被试判断同时呈现的视听信息情绪效价的关系,考察视听情绪信息整合加工特点。实验一中词汇效价与韵律效价不冲突,实验二中词汇效价与韵律效价冲突。两个实验一致发现当面孔表情为积极时,被试对视听通道情绪信息关系判断更准确;实验二还发现,当面孔表情为消极时,相对于韵律线索,被试根据语义线索对视听信息关系判断更迅速。上述结果说明视听信息在同时呈现时,视觉信息可能先行加工,并影响到随后有关视听关系的加工。     

基于双眼视差的立体视觉去掩蔽效应

基于双眼视差的立体视觉不改变目标与掩蔽刺激之间的信噪比, 但能使不同的刺激被知觉在不同的深度位置上以降低目标信号所受到的掩蔽作用。本综述在总结前人双眼去掩蔽研究的基础上, 强调深度维度上的视觉注意在这种主观空间分离去掩蔽过程中所起的重要作用, 并介绍了双眼去掩蔽在现代科技领域中的典型性应用。最后, 结合听觉主观空间分离去掩蔽的研究进展, 本综述认为主观空间分离去掩蔽是大脑处理复杂刺激场景的一个基本功能。     

前分类声音存储器对声调和情绪韵律的加工

采用系列位置回忆任务, 探讨作为声调语言的汉语普通话中声调及情绪信息是否具有近因及后缀效应, 从而揭示同为超音段信息的声调和情绪韵律在前分类声音存储器(Precategorical Acoustic Storage, PAS)中是否具有单独的表征, 及该表征可能受到哪些因素的影响。实验一和二分别考察了声调是否具有近因和后缀效应, 实验三和四分别考察了情绪信息是否具有近因和后缀效应。实验结果发现两者均在PAS存储器中有单独的表征, 但这种表征会受到一些因素的影响, 且受影响的方式不一样。研究结果表明作为超音段信息的声调和情绪信息在表征上的不稳定性和脆弱性, 及在短时记忆加工过程中的特殊性。     

老龄化对F0轮廓线索在汉语言语识别去掩蔽作用的影响

动态基频(F0)轮廓有助于嘈杂环境下的言语识别,可以作为将目标语音从背景声中分离的知觉线索。本研究通过评估老年人与年轻人在言语掩蔽下聆听具有自然动态F0轮廓与对F0轮廓操作调节后的汉语语句的言语识别能力,探讨老龄化对F0轮廓线索在汉语言语识别去掩蔽作用中的影响。结果显示,在言语掩蔽下自然动态的F0轮廓比压扁或拉伸的F0轮廓更能帮助年轻人抵抗信息掩蔽识别目标言语;而老年人在言语掩蔽下却难以从动态F0轮廓线索中受益。研究结果揭示了老年人利用F0轮廓线索促进掩蔽下言语感知能力的老化特点。     

言语韵律加工的ERP研究

韵律是言语各部分声音特性的综合,包括言语韵律和情绪韵律.有关言语韵律加工的ERP研究,涉及韵律成分加工、其与句法、语义、信息结构等的交互作用,以及韵律加工的个体差异.这些研究提供了丰富的信息.但由于韵律的复杂性,目前的研究仍然缺乏统一的范式,所得发现也难以有效整合.今后的言语韵律研究,应对已有研究成果从不同方面和角度进行验证和拓展,并充分重视汉语这一声调语言的加工独特性.     

情绪韵律调节情绪词识别的ERP研究

采用韵律/词汇干扰范式和延迟匹配任务, 通过两个ERP实验, 考察了汉语口语中情绪韵律能否、以及如何调节情绪词的识别。实验一中, 不同类型的情绪韵律分组呈现, ERP结果显示, 同与情绪韵律效价一致的情绪词相比, 与情绪韵律效价不一致的情绪词诱发了走向更负的P200、N300和N400成分; 实验二中, 不同类型的情绪韵律随机呈现, 上述效价一致性效应依然存在。实验结果表明, 情绪韵律能够调节情绪词识别, 主要表现在对情绪词的音韵编码和语义加工的双重易化上。     

语素语义信息对言语听辨的影响

实验主要探讨双字词中语素的语义信息对言语听辨的影响。实验采用语义判断任务,实验材料为双字词首字完整语音分别加上尾字的80毫秒、120毫秒、160毫秒、200毫秒4个语音片段,让被试进行听觉词汇判断任务。实验1选用48组双字词作为关键材料,48组作为填充材料,被试根据听到的语音片段判断该词是否为人词,如,“教师”为人词,“非洲”为非人词;实验2选用了56组关键材料、56组填充材料,任务同实验1。实验结果发现,双字词加工的首字语素语义信息在听词辨认的初始参与了加工,强语义联系对尾字的识别有促进作用,弱语义联系对尾字的识别有抑制作用。初步实验结果支持了言语听辨的多重信息并行激活模型——TRACE模型。     

语境情绪韵律对新异词汇学习过程的影响

模拟自然学习语境,探讨情绪韵律对具体和抽象词学习的调节作用及其产生原因。被试在高兴、愤怒、中性语境情绪韵律条件下学习抽象和具体词,记录学习过程及测试过程中的行为与脑电反应。结果发现在愤怒韵律背景下学习的抽象词加工的正确率更低、反应时更长;并且诱发了更为显著的脑电成分。表明愤怒韵律对词汇学习尤其是抽象词学习有显著的消极作用。此外,情绪韵律对词汇学习的调节作用是在学习过程中对词汇语义提取及晚期语义整合产生影响而形成的。     

The recognition of emotional prosody in students with blindness: Effects of early visual experience and age development

This study examined the role of early visual experience and age in the recognition of emotional prosody among students with visual impairments in China. A total of 75 primary and junior high school students participated in the study. The ability of participants to recognize the prosody of four basic emotions (sadness, anger, happiness, and neutrality) was explored. The findings were as follows. (1) Early visual experience had a significant effect on the recognition of emotional prosody. The accuracy rate of students with congenital blindness was lower than that of students with adventitious blindness, and the performance of students with congenital blindness was lower than that of sighted students. The students with congenital blindness exhibited the slowest recognition speeds. (2) Age had a significant effect on the emotional prosody recognition accuracy of the sighted students, but it had no effect on the students with blindness.     

Emotional prosody effects on verbal memory in older and younger adults

Prosody, or the way things are said, can modify the meaning of utterances making qualitatively different affective prosodies useful for understanding how auditory affective information is processed and remembered. In this study, we collected behavioral data from 225 younger (M age = 20.8 years, SD = 2.5 years; 119 males) and 225 older adults (M age = 71.6 years, SD = 6.5 years; 119 males) in order to examine age differences in emotional prosody effects on verbal memory. Participants were randomly divided into three subgroups according to different prosody listening conditions (positive, negative, and neutral) and prosody effects on a yes–no recognition memory task were investigated. The results showed how older adults who listened to the story read with a neutral prosody remembered more words than those who listened to the same story with a positive or negative prosody. Younger adults showed no valence effects. Our findings highlighted an age and affective prosody interaction that affects remembering in older adults alone.     

“Pain is forgotten where gain follows:” The masking effect of positive outcomes on emotional suffering

Previous research has shown that people tend to overstate or understate their past feelings in memory when asked to recall their past emotional experiences. Drawing from cognitive reappraisal theory and mood congruence theory, we presented an integrative explanation that the type of outcome of stressful events influences the magnitude and direction of bias in emotional memory. The results of two studies showed that individuals who succeeded in a postgraduate recruitment interview or a job interview tended to overstate positive emotions and understate negative emotions. In contrast, individuals who failed in an interview understated positive emotions and overstated negative emotions. This phenomenon can be named “pain is forgotten where gain follows.” These results shed light on the controversy between mood congruent theory and the appraisal model as well as application values in intervention research on emotional biases.     

An ERP investigation on the temporal dynamics of emotional prosody and emotional semantics in pseudo- and lexical-sentence context

Previous evidence supports differential event-related brain potential (ERP) responses for emotional prosodic processing and integrative emotional prosodic/semantic processing. While latter process elicits a negativity similar to the well-known N400 component, transitions in emotional prosodic processing elicit a positivity. To further substantiate this evidence, the current investigation utilized lexical-sentences and sentences without lexical content (pseudo-sentences) spoken in six basic emotions by a female and a male speaker. Results indicate that emotional prosodic expectancy violations elicit a right-lateralized positive-going ERP component independent of basic emotional prosodies and speaker voice. In addition, expectancy violations of integrative emotional prosody/semantics elicit a negativity with a whole-head distribution. The current results nicely complement previous evidence, and extend the results by showing the respective effects for a wider range of emotional prosodies independent of lexical content and speaker voice.     

Recognition and evaluation of emotional prosody in individuals with generalized social phobia: a pilot study

Studies using facial emotional expressions as stimuli partially support the assumption of biased processing of social signals in social phobia. This pilot study explored for the first time whether individuals with social phobia display a processing bias towards emotional prosody. Fifteen individuals with generalized social phobia and fifteen healthy controls (HC) matched for gender, age, and education completed a recognition test consisting of meaningless utterances spoken in a neutral, angry, sad, fearful, disgusted or happy tone of voice. Participants also evaluated the stimuli with regard to valence and arousal. While these ratings did not differ significantly between groups, analysis of the recognition test revealed enhanced identification of sad and fearful voices and decreased identification of happy voices in individuals with social phobia compared with HC. The two groups did not differ in their processing of neutral, disgust, and anger prosody.     

Valence specific laterality effects in prosody: expectancy account and the effects of morphed prosody and stimulus lead

The majority of studies have demonstrated a right hemisphere (RH) advantage for the perception of emotions. Other studies have found that the involvement of each hemisphere is valence specific, with the RH better at perceiving negative emotions and the LH better at perceiving positive emotions [Reuter-Lorenz, P., & Davidson, R.J. (1981) Differential contributions of the 2 cerebral hemispheres to the perception of happy and sad faces. Neuropsychologia, 19, 609-613]. To account for valence laterality effects in emotion perception we propose an 'expectancy' hypothesis which suggests that valence effects are obtained when the top-down expectancy to perceive an emotion outweighs the strength of bottom-up perceptual information enabling the discrimination of an emotion. A dichotic listening task was used to examine alternative explanations of valence effects in emotion perception. Emotional sentences (spoken in a happy or sad tone of voice), and morphed-happy and morphed-sad sentences (which blended a neutral version of the sentence with the pitch of the emotion sentence) were paired with neutral versions of each sentence and presented dichotically. A control condition was also used, consisting of two identical neutral sentences presented dichotically, with one channel arriving before the other by 7 ms. In support of the RH hypothesis there was a left ear advantage for the perception of sad and happy emotional sentences. However, morphed sentences showed no ear advantage, suggesting that the RH is specialised for the perception of genuine emotions and that a laterality effect may be a useful tool for the detection of fake emotion. Finally, for the control condition we obtained an interaction between the expected emotion and the effect of ear lead. Participants tended to select the ear that received the sentence first, when they expected a 'sad' sentence, but not when they expected a 'happy' sentence. The results are discussed in relation to the different theoretical explanations of valence laterality effects in emotion perception.