孤独症谱系障碍者的情绪韵律识别

情绪韵律识别是从声学线索变化中提取情绪信息,进而推断他人情绪状态的过程。情绪韵律识别缺陷是孤独症谱系障碍者的一种常见表现,此缺陷会受到情绪韵律强度、字面语义、情景语境、心理声学能力和共患疾病的影响。目前,该人群情绪韵律识别缺陷的原因探析集中于心智化能力不足、社会动机缺失和经验匮乏假说等。孤独症谱系障碍者情绪韵律识别的神经机制研究主要集中于与健康人群的比较,相关发现包括情绪韵律识别的右半球优势效应、局部脑区激活增多、大脑网络连接不足和早期注意模式异常。未来,应该进一步提高实验范式的生态效度,注重孤独症个体差异因素,整合相关理论解释,并开发有效的测评工具和干预策略。     

SNARC (spatial–numerical association of response codes) meets SPARC (spatial–pitch association of response codes): Automaticity and interdependency in compatibility effects

Concepts, including the mental number line, or addressing pitch as high and low, suggest that the spatial–numerical and spatial–pitch association of response codes (SNARC and SPARC) effects are domain-specific and thus independent. Alternatively, there may be dependencies between these effects, because they share common automatic or controlled decision mechanisms. In two experiments, participants were presented with spoken numbers in different pitches; their numerical value, pitch, and response compatibility were varied systematically. This allowed us to study SNARC and SPARC effects in a factorial design (see also Fischer, Riello, Giordano, &; Rusconi, 2013 Fischer, M. H., Riello, M., Giordano, B. L., &; Rusconi, E. (2013). Singing numbers?…?in cognitive space--a dual-task study of the link between pitch, space, and numbers. Topics in Cognitive Science, 5(2), 354–366. Retrieved from http://doi.org/10.1111/tops.12017[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Participants judged the stimuli on numerical magnitude, pitch, or parity (odd–even). In all tasks, the SNARC and SPARC effects had superadditive interactions. These were interpreted as both effects sharing a common mechanism. The task variation probes the mechanism: In the magnitude judgement task, numerical magnitude was explicit, whereas pitch was implicit; in the pitch judgement task, it was vice versa. In the parity judgement task, both dimensions were implicit. Regardless of whether they were implicit or explicit, both SNARC and SPARC effects occurred in all tasks. We concluded that by not requiring focal attention the common mechanism operates automatically.     

言语的情绪韵律和情绪语义对听觉去信息掩蔽的作用

言语的情绪信息(情绪性韵律和情绪性语义)具有去听觉掩蔽的作用, 但其去掩蔽的具体机制还不清楚。本研究通过2个实验, 采用主观空间分离范式, 通过操纵掩蔽声类型的方式, 分别探究言语的情绪韵律和情绪语义去信息掩蔽的机制。结果发现, 情绪韵律在知觉信息掩蔽或者在知觉、认知双重信息掩蔽下, 均具有去掩蔽的作用。情绪语义在知觉信息掩蔽下不具有去掩蔽的作用, 但在知觉、认知双重信息掩蔽下具有去掩蔽的作用。这些结果表明, 言语的情绪韵律和情绪语义有着不同的去掩蔽机制。情绪韵律能够优先吸引听者更多的注意, 可以克服掩蔽声音在知觉上造成的干扰, 但对掩蔽声音在内容上的干扰作用很小。言语的情绪语义能够优先获取听者更多的认知加工资源, 具有去认知信息掩蔽的作用, 但不具有去知觉信息掩蔽的作用。     

两种任务下情绪韵律的加工进程

采用ERP技术分别考察了情绪判断和性别判断任务下情绪韵律的加工进程。结果显示：在175-275ms时间段,情绪韵律的加工受实验任务的调节,情绪判断任务下存在效价主效应及负性偏向,愤怒比高兴和中性诱发了更正的P2成分,而性别判断任务则无效价效应。在后期评价加工及反应准备阶段（400-800ms）,两种任务下,愤怒都比高兴和中性诱发了更正的晚成分。上述结果说明,不同情绪韵律的识别存在不同的认知机制,并在一定程度上会受加工任务的调节。     

弱智儿童自发性话语中的情感韵律研究

本文用提取声学参数的方法,采用故事讲述任务对弱智儿童自发性话语中的情感韵律进行研究。通过与两组典型儿童-实际年龄匹配组和语言能力匹配组进行比较,探究了弱智儿童自发性话语中情感韵律的表达情况。结果发现：（1）弱智儿童的情感韵律存在一定程度的损伤,在音高范围和元音时长上均有表现;（2）弱智儿童的情感韵律独立于词汇和句法,具有模块性。     

Language specific prosodic preferences during the first half year of life: Evidence from German and French infants

There is converging evidence that infants are sensitive to prosodic cues from birth onwards and use this kind of information in their earliest steps into the acquisition of words and syntactic regularities of their target language. Regarding word segmentation, it has been found that English-learning infants segment trochaic words by 7.5 months of age, and iambic words only by 10.5 months of age [Jusczyk, P. W., Houston, D. M., & Newsome, M. (1999). The beginnings of word segmentation in English-learning infants. Cognitive Psychology, 39, 159–207]. The question remains how to interpret this finding in relation to results showing that English-learning infants develop a preference for trochaic over iambic words between 6 and 9 months of age [Jusczyk, P. W., Cutler, A., & Redanz, N. (1993). Preference for the predominant stress patterns of English words. Child Development, 64, 675–687]. In the following, we report the results of four experiments using the headturn preference procedure (HPP) to explore the trochaic bias issue in German- and French-learning infants. For German, a trochaic preference was found at 6 but not at 4 months, suggesting an emergence of this preference between both ages (Experiments 1 and 2). For French, 6-month-old infants did not show a preference for either stress pattern (Experiment 3) while they were found to discriminate between the two stress patterns (Experiment 4). Our findings are the first to demonstrate that the trochaic bias is acquired by 6 months of age, is language specific and can be predicted by the rhythmic properties of the language in acquisition. We discuss the implications of this very early acquisition for our understanding of the emergence of segmentation abilities.     

The role of the auditory brainstem in processing linguistically-relevant pitch patterns

Historically, the brainstem has been neglected as a part of the brain involved in language processing. We review recent evidence of language-dependent effects in pitch processing based on comparisons of native vs. nonnative speakers of a tonal language from electrophysiological recordings in the auditory brainstem. We argue that there is enhancing of linguistically-relevant pitch dimensions or features well before the auditory signal reaches the cerebral cortex. We propose that long-term experience with a tone language sharpens the tuning characteristics of neurons along the pitch axis with enhanced sensitivity to linguistically-relevant, rapidly changing sections of pitch contours. Though not specific to a speech context, experience-dependent brainstem mechanisms for pitch representation are clearly sensitive to particular aspects of pitch contours that native speakers of a tone language have been exposed to. Such experience-dependent effects on lower-level sensory processing are compatible with more integrated, hierarchically organized pathways to language and the brain.     

Cognitive development, reading and prosodic skills in children with cochlear implants

This report summarizes some of the results of studies in our laboratory exploring the development of cognitive, reading and prosodic skills in children with cochlear implantation (CI). The children with CI performed at significantly lower levels than the hearing comparison group on the majority of cognitive tests, despite showing levels of nonverbal ability. The differences between children with CI and hearing children were most pronounced on tasks with relatively high phonological processing demands, but they were not limited to phonological processing. Impairment of receptive and productive prosody was also evident in children with CI. Despite these difficulties, 75% of the children with CI reached a level of reading skill comparable to that of hearing children. The results are discussed with respect to compensation strategies in reading.     

Congenital amusia: A short-term memory deficit for non-verbal,but not verbal sounds

Congenital amusia refers to a lifelong disorder of music processing and is linked to pitch-processing deficits. The present study investigated congenital amusics’ short-term memory for tones, musical timbres and words. Sequences of five events (tones, timbres or words) were presented in pairs and participants had to indicate whether the sequences were the same or different. The performance of congenital amusics confirmed a memory deficit for tone sequences, but showed normal performance for word sequences. For timbre sequences, amusics’ memory performance was impaired in comparison to matched controls. Overall timbre performance was found to be correlated with melodic contour processing (as assessed by the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia). The present findings show that amusics’ deficits extend to non-verbal sound material other than pitch, in this case timbre, while not affecting memory for verbal material. This is in line with previous suggestions about the domain-specificity of congenital amusia.     

Vocal Features of Conversational Sarcasm: A Comparison of Methods

This study investigated vocal cues that differentiate sarcastic utterances from non-sarcastic utterances. Utterances were drawn from videotapes of participant interviews and arranged on a master tape for analysis. Utterances that were identified as sarcastic by speakers and recognized as sarcastic by listeners were randomly arranged with utterances identified and recognized as non-sarcastic by the same participants. Both sarcastic and non-sarcastic utterances were analyzed by two methods–acoustic analysis and perceptual coding. The acoustic analysis proved slightly more successful than the perceptual coding in discriminating between sarcastic and non-sarcastic utterances. The acoustic analysis indicated that fundamental frequency, frequency range, length of utterance, and total amount of sound significantly discriminated sarcastic from non-sarcastic utterances. The perceptual coding method revealed that pitch range, length of utterance, and total amount of sound significantly discriminated sarcastic from non-sarcastic utterances. Moderate correlations were found between the acoustic and perceptual variables.