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Suppressing sensorimotor activity modulates the discrimination of auditory emotions but not speaker identity
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-07, 18:43 authored by Michael J Banissy, Disa Anna Sauter, Jamie WardJamie Ward, Jane E Warren, Vincent Walsh, Sophie K ScottOur ability to recognize the emotions of others is a crucial feature of human social cognition. Functional neuroimaging studies indicate that activity in sensorimotor cortices is evoked during the perception of emotion. In the visual domain, right somatosensory cortex activity has been shown to be critical for facial emotion recognition. However, the importance of sensorimotor representations in modalities outside of vision remains unknown. Here we use continuous theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) to investigate whether neural activity in the right postcentral gyrus (rPoG) and right lateral premotor cortex (rPM) is involved in nonverbal auditory emotion recognition. Three groups of participants completed same-different tasks on auditory stimuli, discriminating between the emotion expressed and the speakers' identities, before and following cTBS targeted at rPoG, rPM, or the vertex (control site). A task-selective deficit in auditory emotion discrimination was observed. Stimulation to rPoG and rPM resulted in a disruption of participants' abilities to discriminate emotion, but not identity, from vocal signals. These findings suggest that sensorimotor activity may be a modality-independent mechanism which aids emotion discrimination. Copyright © 2010 the authors.
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- Published
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- Published version
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Journal of NeuroscienceISSN
0270-6474External DOI
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41Volume
30Page range
13552-13557Pages
6.0Department affiliated with
- Psychology Publications
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- Yes
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- Yes
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2012-02-06First Open Access (FOA) Date
2016-03-22First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2016-11-17Usage metrics
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