Sprache und Gefhl: Neuropsychologische Einsichten in die emotionale - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Sprache und Gefühl: Neuropsychologische Einsichten in die emotionale Prosodie Axel Mecklinger Arbeitseinheit Experimentelle Neuropsychologie Fachrichtung Psychologie Universität des Saarlandes

Experimental Neuropsychology Unit • Neurocognition of Learning • Memory and Emotion • Binding Mechanisms • Memory in Early Childhood • Cerebrovascular Dementia • EEG / ERP • fMRI / Patient studies http://www.neuro.psychologie.uni-saarland.de

Experimental Neuropsychology Unit Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Experimental Neuropsychology Unit Electroencephalographic (EEG) Imaging

EKP correlates of memory Frontal old/new effect Recollection Familiarity Parietal old/new effect alt neu Mecklinger (2000) Rugg et al (1998) Curran (2000)

Experimental Neuropsychology Unit Binding in Human Memory: • Memory for Associations may depend on the ease of unitisation.

Probing the Ease of Unitisation with emotionally valenced words • Emotionally valenced spoken words - Easy unitization: Congruent intonation (intra-item binding) - Difficult unitization: Neutral intonation (inter-item binding)

Gender Differences in the Processing of Emotional Prosody “ Men don‘t really understand ! There are pronounced gender differences in the time course of processing emotional prosody“ Schirmer et al. (2002, 2003)

Experimental Design Study Study + + 200 ms „bestanden bestanden “ “ „ 1500 ms 2000 ms ITI Task Task: : Remember word and prosody!

Experimental Design Test Test + 200 ms bestanden bestanden 300 ms Old/new Old/ new 300 ms judgment judgment Source Source 1200 ms judgment judgment Source Source Task Task: : ”congruent“ vs. “neutral” 1. prosody during study Response 2000 ms Window 2.Response Window/ITI

Behavioral Data Source Performance Item Pr 1,0 1,0 0,8 Correct responses 0,8 0,6 neutral 0,6 neutral congruent 0,4 congruent 0,4 0,2 0,2 0,0 0,0 male female male female Item memory is better for congruent than for neutral words Source memory: Females outperform males !

Sensitivity of Familiarity to Associations? Females: 250-400 ms: congruent > neutral (p<.10)

ERPs: Source Memory: Males

Are males less able to discriminate emotional prosody? • Follow up study: Classification of intonation: Congruent or neutral? • 12 male and 12 female participants. Mecklinger et al. (in prep)

Are males less able to discriminate emotional prosody? Performance Reaction Times (correct responses) 1,0 1400 0,9 1200 0,8 1000 0,7 Correct Responses 0,6 800 neutral neutral Time 0,5 congruent congruent 600 0,4 0,3 400 0,2 200 0,1 0,0 0 male female male female RTs faster for neutral than for congruent words but: No gender differences in prosody discrimination !

Conclusion(s) • Females show better source memory for easy- (and difficult) to-associate features. They are better capable to unitize features to create a single episodic represenations (at least with emotional prosody). • Implications for the design of language dialogs?