Setting the tone: crossmodal emotional face-voice combinations in continuous flash suppression
Emotional stimuli are preferentially processed in the visual system, in particular, fearful faces. Evidence comes from unimodal studies with emotional faces, although real-life emotional encounters typically involve input from multiple sensory channels, such as a face paired with a voice. Therefore,...
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| Format: | Article |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
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| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1472489/full |
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| author | Ulrich W. D. Müller Antje B. M. Gerdes Georg W. Alpers |
| author_facet | Ulrich W. D. Müller Antje B. M. Gerdes Georg W. Alpers |
| author_sort | Ulrich W. D. Müller |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Emotional stimuli are preferentially processed in the visual system, in particular, fearful faces. Evidence comes from unimodal studies with emotional faces, although real-life emotional encounters typically involve input from multiple sensory channels, such as a face paired with a voice. Therefore, in this study, we investigated how emotional voices influence preferential processing of co-occurring emotional faces. To investigate early visual processing, we used the breaking continuous flash suppression paradigm (b-CFS): We presented fearful, happy, or neutral faces to one eye, which were initially inaccessible to conscious awareness due to the predominant perception of a dynamic mask presented to the other eye. Faces were presented either unimodally or paired with non-linguistic vocalizations (fearful, happy, neutral). Thirty-six healthy participants were asked to respond as soon as the faces reached conscious awareness. We replicated earlier findings that fearful faces broke suppression faster overall, supporting a threat bias. Moreover, all faces broke suppression faster when paired with voices. Interestingly, faces paired with neutral and happy voices broke suppression the fastest, followed by faces with fearful voices. Thus, in addition to supporting a threat bias in unimodally presented fearful faces, we found evidence for crossmodal facilitation. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-f4eaca0e418d49ab9740a180d2a2d9da |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj-art-f4eaca0e418d49ab9740a180d2a2d9da2025-01-16T13:01:20ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782025-01-011510.3389/fpsyg.2024.14724891472489Setting the tone: crossmodal emotional face-voice combinations in continuous flash suppressionUlrich W. D. MüllerAntje B. M. GerdesGeorg W. AlpersEmotional stimuli are preferentially processed in the visual system, in particular, fearful faces. Evidence comes from unimodal studies with emotional faces, although real-life emotional encounters typically involve input from multiple sensory channels, such as a face paired with a voice. Therefore, in this study, we investigated how emotional voices influence preferential processing of co-occurring emotional faces. To investigate early visual processing, we used the breaking continuous flash suppression paradigm (b-CFS): We presented fearful, happy, or neutral faces to one eye, which were initially inaccessible to conscious awareness due to the predominant perception of a dynamic mask presented to the other eye. Faces were presented either unimodally or paired with non-linguistic vocalizations (fearful, happy, neutral). Thirty-six healthy participants were asked to respond as soon as the faces reached conscious awareness. We replicated earlier findings that fearful faces broke suppression faster overall, supporting a threat bias. Moreover, all faces broke suppression faster when paired with voices. Interestingly, faces paired with neutral and happy voices broke suppression the fastest, followed by faces with fearful voices. Thus, in addition to supporting a threat bias in unimodally presented fearful faces, we found evidence for crossmodal facilitation.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1472489/fullcontinuous flash suppressioncrossmodalitymultimodalityvisual perceptionthreat biasanxiety |
| spellingShingle | Ulrich W. D. Müller Antje B. M. Gerdes Georg W. Alpers Setting the tone: crossmodal emotional face-voice combinations in continuous flash suppression Frontiers in Psychology continuous flash suppression crossmodality multimodality visual perception threat bias anxiety |
| title | Setting the tone: crossmodal emotional face-voice combinations in continuous flash suppression |
| title_full | Setting the tone: crossmodal emotional face-voice combinations in continuous flash suppression |
| title_fullStr | Setting the tone: crossmodal emotional face-voice combinations in continuous flash suppression |
| title_full_unstemmed | Setting the tone: crossmodal emotional face-voice combinations in continuous flash suppression |
| title_short | Setting the tone: crossmodal emotional face-voice combinations in continuous flash suppression |
| title_sort | setting the tone crossmodal emotional face voice combinations in continuous flash suppression |
| topic | continuous flash suppression crossmodality multimodality visual perception threat bias anxiety |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1472489/full |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT ulrichwdmuller settingthetonecrossmodalemotionalfacevoicecombinationsincontinuousflashsuppression AT antjebmgerdes settingthetonecrossmodalemotionalfacevoicecombinationsincontinuousflashsuppression AT georgwalpers settingthetonecrossmodalemotionalfacevoicecombinationsincontinuousflashsuppression |