title: Sex differentiates the role of emotional prosody during word processing.
abstract: The meaning of a speech stream is communicated by more than the particular words used by the speaker. For example, speech melody, referred to as prosody, also contributes to meaning. In a cross-modal priming study we investigated the influence of emotional prosody on the processing of visually presented positive and negative target words. The results indicate that emotional prosody modulates word processing and that the time-course of this modulation differs for males and females. Women show behavioural and electrophysiological priming effects already with a small interval between the prosodic prime and the visual target word. In men, however, similar effects of emotional prosody on word processing occur only for a longer interval between prime and target. This indicates that women make an earlier use of emotional prosody during word processing as compared to men.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Stephanstrasse 1a, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Annett
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schirmer
authors.forename: Sonja A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Kotz
authors.forename: Angela D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Friederici
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*