Responses to Semantically Neutral Words in Varying Emotional Intonations

Autor/inn/en	Krestar, Maura L.; McLennan, Conor T.
Titel	Responses to Semantically Neutral Words in Varying Emotional Intonations
Quelle	In: Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 62 (2019) 3, S.733-744 (12 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1092-4388
Schlagwörter	Emotional Response; Stimuli; Young Adults; Word Recognition; Intonation; Auditory Stimuli; Listening; Attention; Speech Communication + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Emotionales Verhalten; Anreizsystem; Young adult; Junger Erwachsener; Worterkennung; Auditive Stimulation; Hörvorgang; Zuhören; Aufmerksamkeit
Abstract	Purpose: Recent research on perception of emotionally charged material has found both an "emotionality effect" in which participants respond differently to emotionally charged stimuli relative to neutral stimuli in some cognitive-linguistic tasks and a "negativity bias" in which participants respond differently to negatively charged stimuli relative to neutral and positively charged stimuli. The current study investigated young adult listeners' bias when responding to neutral-meaning words in 2 tasks that varied attention to emotional intonation. Method: Half the participants completed a word identification task in which they were instructed to type a word they had heard presented binaurally through Sony stereo MDR-ZX100 headphones. The other half of the participants completed an intonation identification task in which they were instructed to use a SuperLab RB-740 button box to identify the emotional prosody of the same words over headphones. For both tasks, all auditory stimuli were semantically neutral words spoken in happy, sad, and neutral emotional intonations. Researchers measured percent correct and reaction time (RT) for each word in both tasks. Results: In the word identification task, when identifying semantically neutral words spoken in happy, sad, and neutral intonations, listeners' RTs to words in a sad intonation were longer than RTs to words in a happy intonation. In the intonation identification task, when identifying the emotional intonation of the same words spoken in the same emotional tones of voice, listeners' RTs to words in a sad intonation were significantly faster than those in a neutral intonation. Conclusions: Results demonstrate a potential attentional negativity bias for neutral words varying in emotional intonation. Such results support an attention-based theoretical account. In an intonation identification task, an advantage emerged for words in a negative (sad) intonation relative to words in a neutral intonation. Thus, current models of emotional speech should acknowledge the amount of attention to emotional content (i.e., prosody) necessary to complete a cognitive task, as it has the potential to bias processing. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01