title: Neural decoding of discriminative auditory object features depends on their socio-affective valence.
abstract: Human voices consist of specific patterns of acoustic features that are considerably enhanced during affective vocalizations. These acoustic features are presumably used by listeners to accurately discriminate between acoustically or emotionally similar vocalizations. Here we used high-field 7T functional magnetic resonance imaging in human listeners together with a so-called experimental 'feature elimination approach' to investigate neural decoding of three important voice features of two affective valence categories (i.e. aggressive and joyful vocalizations). We found a valence-dependent sensitivity to vocal pitch (f0) dynamics and to spectral high-frequency cues already at the level of the auditory thalamus. Furthermore, pitch dynamics and harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR) showed overlapping, but again valence-dependent sensitivity in tonotopic cortical fields during the neural decoding of aggressive and joyful vocalizations, respectively. For joyful vocalizations we also revealed sensitivity in the inferior frontal cortex (IFC) to the HNR and pitch dynamics. The data thus indicate that several auditory regions were sensitive to multiple, rather than single, discriminative voice features. Furthermore, some regions partly showed a valence-dependent hypersensitivity to certain features, such as pitch dynamic sensitivity in core auditory regions and in the IFC for aggressive vocalizations, and sensitivity to high-frequency cues in auditory belt and parabelt regions for joyful vocalizations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland sascha.fruehholz@psychologie.uzh.ch.
authors.forename: Sascha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Frühholz
authors.affiliation: Center for Biomedical Imaging, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Wietske
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: van der Zwaag
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Recherche en Neuroimagerie, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, CHUV, 1011 Lausanne, Switzerland Institute of Bioengineering, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Melissa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Saenz
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK.
authors.forename: Pascal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Belin
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Neurology and Imaging of Cognition, Department of Neurology and Department Neuroscience, Medical School, University of Geneva, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Anne-Kathrin
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Schobert
authors.affiliation: Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland Laboratory for Neurology and Imaging of Cognition, Department of Neurology and Department Neuroscience, Medical School, University of Geneva, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Patrik
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vuilleumier
authors.affiliation: Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland Neuroscience of Emotion and Affective Dynamics Laboratory, Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, Geneva 1205, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Didier
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Grandjean
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000328:Adult; D001303:Auditory Cortex / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D003463:Cues; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014831:Voice; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: auditory features; emotion; fMRI; multivariate analysis; voice