title: EEG oscillations reflect task effects for the change detection in vocal emotion.
abstract: How task focus affects recognition of change in vocal emotion remains in debate. In this study, we investigated the role of task focus for change detection in emotional prosody by measuring changes in event-related electroencephalogram (EEG) power. EEG was recorded for prosodies with and without emotion change while subjects performed emotion change detection task (explicit) and visual probe detection task (implicit). We found that vocal emotion change induced theta event-related synchronization during 100-600 ms regardless of task focus. More importantly, vocal emotion change induced significant beta event-related desynchronization during 400-750 ms under explicit instead of implicit task condition. These findings suggest that the detection of emotional changes is independent of task focus, while the task focus effect in neural processing of vocal emotion change is specific to the integration of emotional deviations.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Psychology in Shaanxi Province, School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, 199# South Chang'an Road, Xi'an, 710062 China ; Key Laboratory of Modern Teaching Technology, Ministry of Education, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an, 710062 China.
authors.forename: Xuhai
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Psychology in Shaanxi Province, School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, 199# South Chang'an Road, Xi'an, 710062 China.
authors.forename: Zhihui
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Psychology in Shaanxi Province, School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, 199# South Chang'an Road, Xi'an, 710062 China.
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Psychology in Shaanxi Province, School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, 199# South Chang'an Road, Xi'an, 710062 China.
authors.forename: Lijie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education, School of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715 China.
authors.forename: Jiajin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yuan
keywords: Change detection; ERD; ERS; Task effect; Vocal emotion