Discovering Emotion in a Cocktail Party: How Emotional Learning Shapes Neural Dynamics in Speech-on-Speech Masking.
Purpose: Under a noisy environment such as a cocktail party, emotional signals play a crucial role in helping listeners unmask target speech. However, it remains unclear how emotional features carried in a speaker's vocal timbre shape neural processing over time. This study aimed to characterize the...
| Publicado en: | Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research Vol. 69; no. 5; pp. 1944 - 1955 |
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| Autores principales: | , , , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
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American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
May2026
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=193696197&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 193696197 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 10924388 1SM jtl: Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research issn: 10924388 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: May2026 vid: 69 iid: 5 pid: 42 pub: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association artinfo: ui: 193696197 10.1044/2026_JSLHR-25-00844 ppf: 1944 ppct: 11 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 1.9MB tig: atl: Discovering Emotion in a Cocktail Party: How Emotional Learning Shapes Neural Dynamics in Speech-on-Speech Masking. aug: au: Lu, Lingxi Bao, Xiaohan Zheng, Li Luo, Lu affil: Cognitive Science and Allied Health School, Beijing Language and Culture University, China. Institute of Life and Health Sciences, Beijing Language and Culture University, China. Key Laboratory of the Cognitive Science of Language (Ministry of Education), Beijing, China. School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China. Department of Physiology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. School of Psychology, Beijing Sport University, China. su: Anger Emotions Facial expression Brain physiology Masking (Psychology) Noise Prompts (Psychology) Research funding Electroencephalography Listening Multivariate analysis Signal processing Descriptive statistics Experimental design Statistics Learning strategies Speech perception Acoustic stimulation Human voice Reaction time Comparative studies Data analysis software Brain mapping sug: subj: Anger Emotions Facial expression Brain physiology Masking (Psychology) Noise Prompts (Psychology) Research funding Electroencephalography Listening Multivariate analysis Signal processing Descriptive statistics Experimental design Statistics Learning strategies Speech perception Acoustic stimulation Human voice Reaction time Comparative studies Data analysis software Brain mapping ab: Purpose: Under a noisy environment such as a cocktail party, emotional signals play a crucial role in helping listeners unmask target speech. However, it remains unclear how emotional features carried in a speaker's vocal timbre shape neural processing over time. This study aimed to characterize the temporal neural dynamics of learned emotion with a speaker's voice in complex listening conditions. Method: We employed an emotional learning paradigm in a speech-on-speech context, pairing two different target speakers with either angry or neutral facial expressions. Electroencephalogram data were recorded from healthy participants, and multivariate pattern analysis combined with representational similarity analysis was used to track the temporal unfolding of learned emotion linked to the target speaker's voice. Results: We observed early neural signatures of emotional processing between 150 and 180 ms after stimulus onset, occurring nearly simultaneously with the decoding of speaker identity. Importantly, brain-behavior analysis revealed that subjective emotional valence ratings could be decoded from neural signals as early as 94 ms. These findings suggest that vocal emotion can be processed rapidly and in a way relatively independent to the process of low-level acoustic cues. Conclusion: Our study provides evidence that acquired emotional associations with a speaker's voice can shape early-stage neural dynamics during speech processing under challenging listening conditions. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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