Functional Near-Infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a neuroimaging tool that has been recently used in a variety of cognitive paradigms. Yet, it remains unclear whether fNIRS is suitable to study complex cognitive processes such as categorization or discrimination. Previously, functional imaging has suggested a role of both inferior frontal cortices in attentive decoding and cognitive evaluation of emotional cues in human vocalizations. Here, we extended paradigms used in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the suitability of fNIRS to study frontal lateralization of human emotion vocalization processing during explicit and implicit categorization and discrimination using mini-blocks and event-related stimuli. Participants heard speech-like but semantically meaningless pseudowords spoken in various tones and evaluated them based on their emotional or linguistic content. Behaviorally, participants were faster to discriminate than to categorize; and processed the linguistic faster than the emotional content of stimuli. Interactions between condition (emotion/word), task (discrimination/categorization) and emotion content (anger, fear, neutral) influenced accuracy and reaction time. At the brain level, we found a modulation of the Oxy-Hb changes in IFG depending on condition, task, emotion and hemisphere (right or left), highlighting the involvement of the right hemisphere to process fear stimuli, and of both hemispheres to treat anger stimuli. Our results show that fNIRS is suitable to study vocal emotion evaluation, fostering its application to complex cognitive paradigms.

中文翻译：

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人类对声音情绪的辨别和分类：功能性近红外光谱 (fNIRS) 研究


功能近红外光谱（fNIRS）是一种神经成像工具，最近已用于各种认知范式。然而，目前尚不清楚 fNIRS 是否适合研究复杂的认知过程，例如分类或歧视。此前，功能成像表明下额皮质在人类发声中情绪线索的注意力解码和认知评估中发挥着作用。在这里，我们扩展了功能磁共振成像（fMRI）中使用的范式，以研究 fNIRS 在使用小块和事件相关刺激进行显式和隐式分类和区分期间研究人类情感发声处理的额叶偏侧化的适用性。参与者听到以各种语气说出的类似语音但在语义上无意义的伪词，并根据其情感或语言内容对其进行评估。在行为上，参与者的区分速度快于分类速度；并且处理语言的速度比处理刺激的情感内容的速度快。条件（情绪/言语）、任务（歧视/分类）和情绪内容（愤怒、恐惧、中性）之间的相互作用影响准确性和反应时间。在大脑水平上，我们发现 IFG 中的 Oxy-Hb 变化会根据条件、任务、情绪和半球（右或左）进行调节，强调右半球参与处理恐惧刺激，而两个半球参与处理恐惧刺激。愤怒刺激。我们的结果表明，fNIRS 适合研究声音情感评估，促进其在复杂认知范式中的应用。