Hemispheric Interactions in the Recognition of Words and Emotional Intonations

Abstract

Subjects were presented with the French words “dure” and “douce” (hard and soft) uttered in either a hard or a soft intonation. When the task was to recognise the word, no ear difference was observed in reaction times. However, when the phonologically similar words “dune” and “douze” (sand-hill and twelve) were presented and uttered in the same intonations, there was a clear right-ear advantage. Recognition of the intonation showed only a small left-ear advantage, which did not depend on material. These results confirm the notion that processing of linguistic information and of emotional prosody are differently lateralised in the brain, and suggest that there are enhanced hemispheric interactions leading to more symmetrical patterns of cerebral activity when both dimensions bear some relationship than when they do not. In addition, Stroop-like interference effects were obtained between word and intonation. The patterns of interference depended on which dimension was relevant; dimensional interaction might occur at an earlier level of processing in the word task than in the intonation task.