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Suppressing sensorimotor activity modulates the discrimination of auditory emotions but not speaker identity

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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 Scott
Our 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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Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Journal of Neuroscience

ISSN

0270-6474

Issue

41

Volume

30

Page range

13552-13557

Pages

6.0

Department affiliated with

  • Psychology Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2016-03-22

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2016-11-17

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