Under a “cocktail-party” environment with simultaneous multiple talkers, recognition of target speech is effectively improved by a number of perceptually unmasking cues. It remains unclear whether emotions embedded in the target-speaker’s voice can either improve speech perception alone or interact with other cues facilitating speech perception against a masker background. This study used two target-speaker voices with different emotional valences to examine whether recognition of target speech is modulated by the emotional valence when the target speech and the maskers were perceptually co-located or separated. The results showed that both the speech recognition against the masker background and the separation-induced unmasking effect were higher for the target speaker with a negatively emotional voice than for the target speaker with a positively emotional voice. Moreover, when the negative voice was fear conditioned, the target-speech recognition was further improved against speech informational masking. These results suggested that the emotionally vocal unmasking cue interacts significantly with the perceived spatial-separation unmasking cue, facilitating the unmasking effect against a masking background. Thus, emotional features embedded in the target-speaker’s vocal timbre are also useful for unmasking the target speech in “cocktail-party” environments.

在具有多个同时讲话者的“鸡尾酒会”环境下，通过许多可感知的掩盖线索有效地提高了对目标语音的识别。尚不清楚目标讲话者语音中嵌入的情感是否可以单独改善语音感知能力，还是可以与其他线索互动，从而在掩蔽者背景下促进语音感知。这项研究使用两种具有不同情感价位的目标说话人语音来检验当目标语音和掩蔽者在感知上共处一处或分离时，情感价位对目标语音的识别是否有所调节。结果表明，具有负面情绪的目标说话人在掩蔽者背景下的语音识别和分离诱导的非掩蔽效果均高于具有正面情绪的目标说话者。而且，当负面声音被恐惧所限制时，目标语音识别相对于语音信息掩蔽得到了进一步改善。这些结果表明，情感上的声音掩盖线索与感知的空间分离掩盖线索发生了显着的相互作用，从而促进了掩盖背景下的掩盖效果。因此，嵌入在目标说话人声音中的情绪特征对于在“鸡尾酒会”环境中展现目标言语也很有用。针对语音信息掩蔽，目标语音识别得到了进一步的改善。这些结果表明，情感上的声音掩盖线索与感知的空间分离掩盖线索发生了显着的相互作用，从而促进了掩盖背景下的掩盖效果。因此，嵌入在目标说话人声音中的情绪特征对于在“鸡尾酒会”环境中展现目标言语也很有用。针对语音信息掩蔽，目标语音识别得到了进一步的改善。这些结果表明，情感上的声音掩盖线索与感知的空间分离掩盖线索发生了显着的相互作用，从而促进了掩盖背景下的掩盖效果。因此，嵌入在目标说话人声音中的情绪特征对于在“鸡尾酒会”环境中展现目标言语也很有用。