Abstract
Auditory information can transfer emotional message through rhythm and semantic meaning. In some cases, the emotional implication from the rhythm and the semantic might even be inconsistent. If such a complicated auditory information simultaneously presented with visual information like faces, what kind of interaction among them would happen when people process them? To investigate this question is the aim of our present study.
The sound materials were produced by two professional speakers, a male and a female. In Experiment 1, speakers read neutral word in a happy or angry rhythm respectively, and the participants’ task was to judge whether the emotion of the rhythm of speech was consistent with the facial expression which was presented at the same time or not. In Experiment 2, speakers read positive word in an angry rhythm or read negative word in a happy rhythm respectively, and the participants’ task was to judge either the emotion of the rhythm of speech or the semantics of speech was consistent with the facial expression which was presented at the same time. There were 43 participants (21 females) taking part in Experiment 1 and 40 participants (20 females) taking part in Experiment 2. Each experiment included 120 trails. In Experiment 1, half were consistent and the other were inconsistent. In Experiment 2, half were consistent with the semantic information and the other were consistent with the rhythm information. The key-response mapping was counterbalanced across participants. Repeated measures ANOVA with facial expression and rhythm-emotion consistency as the within-subjects factors in Experiment 1 and with facial expression and judgment cue as the within-subjects factors in Experiment 2 were performed on the participant’s mean reaction time and accuracy.
The results revealed that (1) when the facial expression was positive, participants were more accurate to judge the relationship of information between the visual and auditory channels[Experiment 1:F(1,42)=15.414,p<0.001,partial?2=0.268;Experiment 2:F(1,39)=6.824,p<0.05,partial?2=0.149]. (2) In Experiment 1,when the valence of the rhythm was consistent with the facial expression, the judgment of the relationship of information between the visual and auditory channels was faster [F(1,42)=37.631,p<0.001,partial?2=0.473] and more accurate[F(1,42)=21.800,p<0.001,partial?2=0.342]. (3) In Experiment 2, when the facial expression was negative, compared with the rhythm clues of words, the semantic clues could facilitate participants’ response in judging the relationship of visual and auditory stimuli [F(1,39)=15.78,p<0.001, partial?2=0.405].
The results suggested that when the visual and auditory stimuli are presented at the same time, the visual information may be processed in advance and then affected the auditory information processing. No matter the emotional valence of visual and auditory stimulus was conflicting or not, positive facial expression promoted the cognitive judgment about the relationship between the visual and auditory information. When the emotional valence of visual and auditory stimulus was congruent, it brought out an Easy processing phenomenon. When the emotional valence of visual and auditory stimulus was conflicting, negative facial expression and the semantic information in the auditory channel could promote each other’s processing.
Present study innovatively explored the separated role of the semantic emotional information and the rhythm emotional information of a word on the judgment about the relationship between the visual and auditory. It initially revealed that the semantic information had speed advantage while the rhythm information had accuracy advantage when the visual stimulus was negative facial expression.
Key words
cross-modal /
facial expression /
emotional voice /
rhythm-semantic conflicts
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Interaction of Visual and Auditory Emotional Information during Their Relationship Evaluation[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2016, 39(4): 842-848
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