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Cerebral Cortex Advance Access published online on June 8, 2009
Cerebral Cortex, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhp106
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

On Emotional Conflict: Interference Resolution of Happy and Angry Prosody Reveals Valence-Specific Effects

Matthias Wittfoth1, Christine Schröder1, Dina M. Schardt2, Reinhard Dengler1, Hans-Jochen Heinze3 and Sonja A. Kotz4

1 Department of Neurology, Hannover Medical School, D-30625 Hannover, Germany, 2 Institute of Diagnostic and Interventional Neuroradiology, Hannover Medical School, D-30625 Hannover, Germany, 3 Department of Neurology II, Otto-von-Guericke University, D-39120 Magdeburg, Germany, 4 Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Research Group Neurocognition of Rhythm in Communication, D-04303 Leipzig, Germany

Address correspondence to email: wittfoth.matthias{at}mh-hannover.de

To comprehend emotional prosodic cues in speech is a critical function of human social life. However, it is common in everyday communication that conflicting information in emotional prosody and semantic content co-occur. Here, we sought to specify brain regions involved in conflict monitoring of these interfering communication channels. By means of functional magnetic resonance imaging, we obtained signal increases in the right dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and right superior temporal gyrus (STG) and superior temporal sulcus when participants listened to incongruous compared with congruous sentences. Moreover, valence-specific effects were found in the left inferior frontal gyrus and left STG for happily intoned sentences expressing a negative content. The left caudate nucleus along with the thalamus was active when angrily intoned sentences were coupled with positive semantic content. Our results suggest a brain network that monitors conflict in emotional prosody and emotional semantic content comprising of medial prefrontal areas that have previously been associated with cognitive conflict processing. Furthermore, our study extends the knowledge of these processes by suggesting valence-specific differences of emotional conflict processing.

Key Words: basal ganglia • conflict monitoring • emotional prosody • error processing • inferior frontal gyrus


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