Electrophysiological evidence for an early processing of human voices.
BACKGROUND
Previous electrophysiological studies have identified a "voice specific response" (VSR) peaking around 320 ms after stimulus onset, a latency markedly longer than the 70 ms needed to discriminate living from non-living sound sources and the 150 ms to 200 ms needed for the processing of voice paralinguistic qualities. In the present study, we investigated whether an early electrophysiological difference between voice and non-voice stimuli could be observed.


RESULTS
ERPs were recorded from 32 healthy volunteers who listened to 200 ms long stimuli from three sound categories - voices, bird songs and environmental sounds - whilst performing a pure-tone detection task. ERP analyses revealed voice/non-voice amplitude differences emerging as early as 164 ms post stimulus onset and peaking around 200 ms on fronto-temporal (positivity) and occipital (negativity) electrodes.


CONCLUSIONS
Our electrophysiological results suggest a rapid brain discrimination of sounds of voice, termed the "fronto-temporal positivity to voices" (FTPV), at latencies comparable to the well-known face-preferential N170.
Charest
Ian
I
Centre for Cognitive NeuroImaging (CCNi) & Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK. i.charest@psy.gla.ac.uk
Pernet
Cyril R
CR
Rousselet
Guillaume A
GA
Quiñones
Ileana
I
Latinus
Marianne
M
Fillion-Bilodeau
Sarah
S
Chartrand
Jean-Pierre
JP
Belin
Pascal
P
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted